Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

Hello Frugalistas,
Another calmly productive day & no spending either....not for me, anyway.....Mr F pinged me a while ago to say he is bringing caramel buttons, so he's clearly been in a shop somewhere along the way today!
I've cleaned the entire house & done all the accompanying things like changing household linens, sorting out bins, etc. I've baked a loaf plus a batch of rolls, partly to make better use of the gas, & also because they'll be useful to fill for a couple of picnics next week. Dinner is in the slow cooker - am trying a new recipe from the slow cooker book I bought earlier this year - Karahi chicken. Hope it's nice. It will definitely provide extra portions for the freezer, but I'll take the meat off the bone before dividing up the spare portions as it will be easier to defrost & re-heat. I've done meal plans for next week & had a look around the kitchen for things which need using up. 500g of carrots found which won't last until we're next likely to want them so I've prepped & frozen them & we won't need to buy any this week. Added an ancient crone of a ruby grapefruit to my lunch fruit.....it looked most unappetising from the outside but was perfectly fine inside, still lovely & juicy. Did a couple of transfers from pots to keep the budget straight & paid some transactions off my credit card. All budgeted for so it should be a nice nil balance when the bill arrives. Cashed out my P/A earnings for June - I wasn't as active this month, but my May earnings are still in Paypal so I will have over £42 in total. 
I only need to bung a bit of rice on to cook tonight & write the grocery shopping list. Mr F says he's feeding the veg garden as he's been at his desk all day & fancies some fresh air. That will suit me - my hands are stiff from yesterday's gardening efforts (arthritis) - it doesn't help when the soil is so dry & hard as I have to work twice as hard to get my trowel in. Oh & it's my turn to sort out the litter tray. It's outside in the garden now.....we are hoping to transition to not having one at all....& currently looks as though an elephant has used it! I do hope not to be doing this job (or paying out for litter) for very much longer. Soot is doing very well with going outside though, given that he spent so many years as a completely indoor cat. Ash is the opposite - he lived rough before he went into the Rescue - strongly suspect he was acquired pre-pandemic as a stunning kitten, then dumped during lockdown. Both lovely boys & lots of fun.
Take care m'dears,
F x

Sun_Addict

My older cat does her business in the garden but the younger one often comes in just to use the litter tray 😐 I’m changing it a lot less now though so she is gradually grasping the idea. 

Elisheba

I can't get either of my cats to not use a litter tray for love nor money, and they have had access to the outdoors since they got their first injections as kittens. It's so annoying! 

2Scratters

Well the purse is definitely having to stay away this month as when I checked its a 5 week month . The meal planning will have to be adhered to and will aim to have just 1 takeaway in that time as I am still on holiday/leave. We haven't done anything else so it is completely justified. The monthly fuel bill readings have gone in and have gone down even though the rates have gone up. Have emailed to complain as not being notified of this happening - its not fair and we all need to know asap. We'll see what they have to say in their response.
Need to get outside as the weather is nice so grabbing it while we can. 
Vehicle insurances are due on the same day (used to be on a group policy). Have managed to stop the auto renewals that tend to go out as they wish them too. This time we are hanging on a bit longer before paying up especially as the interest rates are starting to creep up.
Have a good weekend Peeps.

2 Scratters xx

foxgloves

@Elisheba &@Sun_Addict - re litter trays....we've gone down to one as Ash is used to using the garden for ablutions. With Soot, we are at the stage where the remaining litter tray is outside under a hedge. He's fine using that, esp as he is now happy to come & go through the catflap. The next stage is to make a tray-sized rectangle of cat litter directly on the soil under the same hedge so that he gradually gets the idea that a plastic tray is not required. It's slow progress because he'd never been outside in his life until he was re-homed with us, but at least there is progress. The tray is unobtrusive & better outside than in from an odour point of view. 
F

foxgloves

@2Scratters - I used to get caught out by auto-renewals in the early days of budgeting. Before that, back in the Spendy Era, I wasn't bothered because I didn't really care what I paid. When I get my new diary each year, I write in a reminder that insurance renewals are coming up & make sure I give myself sufficient notice to compare prices. I was extremely organised in my professional life & now I adopt the same standards in my personal/household finances, I do find it saves me a lot of money.
F

foxgloves

Hello Friday Frugal Friends,
Well it's a 'Must do better' for us on the grocery budget front this month. Today was the 1st shop of my July budget cycle - a straight 4-week month. We got off to a decent start this morning, using 2 supermarkets, a discount toiletries store & our local market. Having a few bits ready to pick from the garden is already making a difference as our fruit & veg stall spend was about £8 - it's often easily double that. For any cat people whose little dears only eat F*lix 'AGAIL' variety, M*zzer's usually has the best price on this at £13 for 40 pouches, but atm it's on offer at £9. We bought 2 boxes as have seen this on sale elsewhere at £15.50. 
Mr F had some decent loyalty card offers at Waitr*se which reduced our spend at the till. I haven't added everything up yet, as I do my next budget updates on Monday, but I don't think today's effort will look too shabby.
I'm chatting to you from my pondside bench which I'm sharing with a purry Ash. I've just filled 3 big trugs with garden clearings - love a wander round with the secateurs....though I did once chop off my headphones!
Had to laugh at Mr F. Today I wanted to pop in a discount chain to buy a pot of that pink cleaning paste. He said "What do you want that for?" I reminded him we'd planned to do a joint effort on cleaning the oven next week. He was a bit cynical as to its likely effectiveness but we bought some anyway. Well, I've just been indoors to pop 2 more cukes in the fridge (I've picked 6 this week!) & he's put a podcast on & is busy cleaning the oven. And guess what? The pink gunk is now the best thing he's ever tried. The glass door on the top oven was certainly sparkling like new! He's apparently never buying proprietary oven cleaner again because "it stinks, it's full of chemicals & it's rubbish". Well it looks like my tiny diversion to an extra shop for that £1.79 spend was worth it then, doesn't it?
Oooops, here comes the rain. My fur friend is already heading for indoors & I'm not going to be far behind him.
Cheers all,
F x

Onebrokelady

I used bicarb and vinegar last time I cleaned my oven and it did a brilliant job, no mor3 stinky cleaners for me 😊

Baileys_Babe

According to this MSE article, the best time to get a car insurance quote is 23 days before it is due. This week I a gathering the information I need to renew both our insurances and discussing with OH what changes we need/want to make, like annual mileage, changing who is the primary driver on each car, voluntary excess...

peb

@foxgloves would you be good enough to share the name of the pink goo please?