Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

Hello Frugal Diary Friends, 
Pleasant morning walking around the lake at a local-ish historic park. Called in their little garden centre last thing as had been feeling quite tempted to buy a new plant. They didn't have what I wanted & luckily for my purse, I was desperate for the loo so didn't hang around looking for alternative stuff to buy (saved by the bladder!)
Anyway, this afternoon, Mr F suggested helping me with a few heavier garden jobs, resulting in me feeling I've achieved some new looks for free. Yes, shopping from home strikes again! We moved Mum's big potted Christmas tree down to the wild area at the end of the garden & it looks like it's always been there. Then I repotted a smaller Christmas tree I grew from seed about 10 years ago into a big pot I already had & re-potted two pot-bound agapanthus plants into a big repurposed terracotta pot & an old zinc bucket. I accidentally broke a big V-shape out of a blue china pot, so I've stood it upside-down on the slabs around the pond - a free 🐸 house! Finally re-potted a clump of sempervivums into a bigger pot where they can trail down the side. Oh, & I also side-shooted & tied in all the 🍅 plants again. Mr F is just giving everything a good water. We've decided to bump tonight's planned meal to tomorrow when he's got more time to cook it & order a pizza tonight. As we have made this decision in the full knowledge that we have plenty of other food in the house we could eat & it's unplanned, we will be using our personal spends. Oooh, I'm a hard woman these days, lol!
Must get this phone on charge now, so I'll leave you to your evenings,
F xx

Blackcats

Enjoy your pizza!  Even in my speediest times I didn't use to order in pizzas - no idea why not.  Obviously a missed opportunity for me to spend more of barcla* card's money.

laughing at the to do lists for OH's - mr blackcats calls his the BTL.  The T and L stand for task and list.  The B is bloody 🤐.  We sometimes find old lists on a scrap of paper and he is very pleased to gloat about all his achievements from about 2 years ago.  achievements such as "post parcel" or "top up windscreen wash" 🤣

Deni_debt-free_dreamer

Evening foxgloves
I thought of you this eve when having a phone conversation with my stepmum.  I said proudly how i was very brave and switched off my landing light all night!  And also did other money saving things like unplugging my clock radio as soon as i woke up.  She said oh but that only saves pennies.  But we all know that pennies add up to pounds....
love Deni x

foxgloves

@Blackcats - lol at the tasks on your partner's list. I expect Mr F to do the routine stuff like windscreen washer fluid & posting stuff as a matter of course (& to be fair, he does) so when he asks me for a 'Job List', I go to town on the bigger projects - stuff he wouldn't think to do, doesn't know needs doing or I can't do it by myself as it's a heavy physical job which needs to be done by a brick outhouse.

@Deni_debt-free_dreamer - That's exactly it! All those little energy saving measures do just save pennies, but if you regularly do 20 or 30 different ones, then over a year, those pennies have GOT to add up into £££s. And using less energy is greener too. I intend to continue with all my little measures. At least then, when my monthly DD increases I can honestly say that I tried to mitigate it for as long as possible. It's the only part of this over which we have any control.
F x

foxgloves

Hello Monday Money Savers,
A few frugal wins today: 
*Laundry done & all line-dried for free outside in the sunshine.
*Monday morning budget updates done. Transferred funds as necessary. Grocery budget is not going to yield the left-over unspent cashola I hoped it would - meal planning defo from stores for the final week of my June budget cycle.
*Asked Mr F to log into mobile provider account for a definitive answer re how much we are paying per month since we changed our phones. Slight discrepancy as they appear to be taking £2 less per month than listed on our tariff. I don't think I will query that one any further.
*Phoned NT & requested a change to monthly DD instead of an annual payment, as there is no credit charge.
*Lifted our October-planted garlic. Excellent big bulbs this year. All laid out to dry. The bulb Mr F put his fork through has been brought indoors to use as wet garlic as it won't keep well.
*Weeded new front garden bed as a lot of little weeds had popped up from the home made compost layer we added for a bit of organic matter. Felt I'd had a good bend & stretch doing that. Pulled up a plant that was failing to thrive & replaced it with a salvia from my friend & 3 apricot foxgloves I grew from saved seed (so all free plants).
*Sent off cattery booking form - have asked for a large double pen to save a little money - naturally as soon as I'd clicked send, Ash hissed at Soot & clumped him around the earhole for no reason whatsoever, so that's boding well for  a shared pen.........
*Pretty much decided to make a packed lunch for our planned outing tomorrow to avoid one of those "We're out at lunchtime & oooooh look! Paninis & chunky chips" moments.
*Busy on a genealogy project all afternoon - I'm intending to type up my research, illustrate it with photos & present it in a nice ring-binder to give as a Christmas present. 
*And finally.....appreciating the library! I'm reading what I thought was the 4th book in the Scandi-crime series I mentioned recently & I discovered there are actually two more titles! So that was a nice surprise as I love reading, & I have added them to my library list rather than buy them.
Right, that's me.......Mr F's cooking night so I am going to see if the tadpoles have grown any more legs, then I'm going to read.
Take care,m'dears,
F x

CRANKY40

Don't worry about a shared pen - they'll be too busy hissing and yelling at the other inmates to fight with each other.....

foxgloves

Lol, hope so, @CRANKY40! Our usual cattery is closed when we need to book this time, so we've had to find another one to try but it looks very nice on the website & at least our two will be company for each other. 
F

Tescodealqueen

Are you on Tesco mobile we get a £2.00 per month cc deduction (there are other options)

Chrystal

*Sent off cattery booking form - have asked for a large double pen to save a little money - naturally as soon as I'd clicked send, Ash hissed at Soot & clumped him around the earhole for no reason whatsoever, so that's boding well for  a shared pen.........

I laughed out loud at this and it's lovely to hear that Ash has settled in so well, wandering around the garden etc,  and found his courage.  He's come on really well since the scardy cat that arrived. XX

Sun_Addict

When we had to put our cats in a cattery many years ago, I asked for separate pens as they didn’t get on. They ended up sharing and just huddled together for the two weeks they were there, proving me a liar. The male cat wasn’t happy and I had the lasting memory of him standing on his back legs with his paws in the air like a meerkat watching us go. I felt such a heel.  Now I’ve got a live in pet sitter in the form of DD thankfully. 

I’m also cutting back on grocery spends this week, the final one of my June budget.