Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

@Blackcats - I think I sometimes just type what I'm thinking as it goes through my head, as I'd forgotten I'd even mentioned the pb. Note to self to be more focused & less stream of consciousness, lol.
Soot & Ash also good at the leg swirling while trying to look starving to divert my attention from the dry jelly-all-licked-off meat still lying ignored in their bowls. Yes Soot, that meat IS dry, but who licked all the jelly off? Because it certainly wasn't me!
F

CRANKY40

Blackcats said:

I'm surprised that no-one enquired further about the peanut butter down your bra incident.  We are either very polite or not much surprises us on your diary anymore 🤷‍♀️

@Blackcats has omitted those of us who just sighed and nodded in agreement ha ha! Chocolate buttons are similarly hazardous to those of us with ample cleavage....

foxgloves

Hello Diary Readers,
Busy day today & my planned hour out in the sunshine with my book didn't happen due to wasting 2 hours+ trying to sign into my online banking....half an hour of which was spent in a phone queue. Problem eventually solved which enabled me to get on with.....
Monday morning money stuff: Updated budgets, transferred funds as necessary, checked our PA earnings had landed via PayPal & added them to Personal Spends spreadsheet. Did manage to do a few surveys while waiting for bank problem to resolve.

Daily stuff: 2 loads of laundry dried for free in the sunshine. Two baths from a single fill of hot water which was left to cool then used to water front courtyard plants. Topped up worm composter with scraps.

Kitchen witchery: Prepped & froze a bag of French beans, baked a granary loaf, used 1kg of our homegrown tomatoes to make a batch of Hairy Biker basic curry sauce for freezer - it's a good one & v useful for turning odds & ends into a tasty meal. Also did rubber chicken duties. For rubber chicken fans, it stretched to:
Roast dinner last night

Chicken salad tonight

Spicy filled pittas & stir-fried garlicky courgettes (tomorrow)
Some frozen (by request) for next Epic Man Stew.
A container in the fridge for making chicken soup

1 jug of fresh stock to use in the soup & 1 container frozen.
The way prices are going up, I'm not going to waste a scrap of our homegrown fruit & veg. I'm like a squirrel this time of year anyway, prepping stuff for Autumn, but the renewed need for thrift is providing extra motivation as there's not a lot of room for complacency. 
Loins girded for the long-haul, m'dears,
Love Foxgloves xx

foxgloves

@CRANKY40 - Lol, yes, that is exactly the problem. I once lost a whole Malteser down there - ridiculous!
F

Humdinger1

Yes @CRANKY40 and @foxgloves; and Maltesers aren't small! Thinking about cleavage right now as DD and I have bra fittings booked tomorrow.   Some of mine are so old I can't even cut them up for dusters.  I have also decided to avoid underwired as not only does the wire always break loose and encircle the b**b like a gothic claw, but it also only happens on one side so if you pull the wire out you have a lopsided bra! M and S says that wire should not be needed for support so there we have it...onwards and upwards love Humdinger xx 

foxgloves

@Humdinger1 - I always used to prefer underwired bras - more choice, prettier styles & decent support - but I think that in recent years, quality has declined & value for money less certain. While wires poking through has always been 'a thing', I used to find this happened more towards the end of life of the bra. The last 2 underwired bras I purchased went into a hole in the exact same place in the casing after just about 3 months, causing the wire to come out. On one of these, I sewed up the hole but the wire was poking through again in days. I then read a tip somewhere on here about patching it, so I did that with a tiny double layer of fabric. This worked. Then the other bra I bought did the same thing. I haven't mended that one yet (it's an Annoying Job). I've found other lingerie type stuff also of reduced quality in the last few years too.....e.g 80 denier black tights from a usually v high quality dept store......worst tights I've ever bought.....I did try to make do with them but couldn't stand them any longer & threw them all in the bin.
F

Sun_Addict

The best bras I’ve found are Sainsburys Tu, none of the wires have come out of mine and they’ve had many a twirl in the washing machine. Kept their shape too despite me treating them so badly 😆

foxgloves

Thanks for the recommendation @Sun_Addict. I must admit I haven't looked at bras in there since I got well & truly stuck in one in the King's Lynn branch. I remember there was a good range of colours but most of them at the time had padding & that's one thing the foxgloves boobs do not require! I'll have another browse next time I'm in our nearest store though.
F

foxgloves

Hello Sunbeams,
Disturbed night due to the wind getting up & endlessly rattling the bedroom blind, so not as much energy in the ancient bones today, lol.
Thrifty wins: 
No money spent.

Did quite a few surveys to kick off August's survey earnings.
Wrapped my sister's birthday presents using gorgeous paper I got half price in January sales, home made gift tags & a repurposed box for posting.
While wrapping, decided it would be sensible to save the biggest & heaviest gift for Christmas instead, as postage won't be cheap & will be even more if I include this item. So that's one of her Christmas presents done. I popped in an extra little thing from the presents stash instead.
Did weekly ironing - switched off to press final top with residual heat. I would save more electricity if I ironed more quickly. Might try that next time. Speed-ironing.
Made a batch of chicken soup using leftover rubber chicken & the stock I made yesterday. We both like soup for lunches in Autumn, so it's useful getting a variety into the freezer in advance.
Today's garden pickings: Courgettes & a few more blackberries.
Apart from cooking tonight's nosebag & watering the greenhouse, I'm done for the day.
Take care now,
F x

foxgloves

Morning Sunbeams,
Aiming for a low-key day of productivity alternating with reading. 
Small money saving wins so far: 
*Wrote next week's meal plans, based entirely on what we already have in stock & our own garden produce. Can't see it being a very long grocery shopping list this week.
*Saved energy by getting 2 baths from 1 modest fill of hot water (which I then used to bail 6 watering cans full onto the garden, thus getting a bit of a weights workout - long garden!)
*Garden pickings: Aubergines (am trying a new recipe - Cheesy aubergine bake - from one of the P.O.N books tonight)
*Free exercise trotting down to postbox then clearing a section of one of our big garden borders....all that bending, stretching, lugging trugs around, etc, has got to contribute to my general mobility & fitness, I'd have thought. Almost everything has 'gone over' early because of the heat, so I thought I may as well begin shearing plants back into neater clumps as they may well push out a few blooms next month if they get some targeted watering.
Annoying Jobs: None.......BUT am in the middle of sorting out a frog.....& if I can succeed in doing this, then I can get on & sort another semi-related frog, which would be 2 amphibious fiends vanquished in one day. Just awaiting an email to see if I can consider Frog 1 swallowed or whether it is going to require a 2nd gulp. Fingers crossed.
Soot is refusing to eat his breakfast again......a few licks of jelly, then pouch wasted & an enormous amount of his time & energy then put into pestering for biscuits. Have tried garnishing the offending meat with a few, but he said he's not falling for that sort of skank & is following me around loudly meowing his disbelief at what a bad meowmy I am for being so heartless & stingy as to expect our household's zero food-waste policy to extend to cats. 
Well, still no email about the frog......a watched pot never boils, as the saying goes, so I will sign out & take myself off to get on with something else.
Wishing everyone a peaceful & productive day,
F x