Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

Too right, @milann & don't worry about the soapbox....I practically seem to live on mine atm!

foxgloves

So today's planned tasks were mostly achieved plus a couple of extra things. De-gunking  pond has been deferred until tomorrow.
I've cleaned the house, baked a sourdough & decided to bake Mary Berry's muesli biscuits to use up some of a rather elderly bag of muesli. The blackberry & pear gin is in situe on the kitchen dresser where I can enjoy its increasingly purple sumptuousness each day. Jam jars for tomorrow's jamming session out & ready for action. My enormous cake tin has been pressed into action as our new bread bin. I'd rather see how we get on with that than buy a new one atm. Hope it's a shopped from home success. Did a couple of surveys & cashed out a £5 voucher (these will be added to the Presents Pot).
NOT money saving......ordering a new vacuum cleaner. I finally caved in today. Mr F a very happy bunny. Since our old vacuum carked it, we've been using an ancient one of Mum's. This has been a bone of contention between Mr F & I because he hates it & says it's useless, whereas my verdict is that it lacks ooomph but still picks up perfectly well & we should wait till it conks out before spending out on a new one. My big weekly cleaning day is Friday & as Mr F has had a lot of Fridays off recently, he's volunteered for the vacuuming. Today, he volunteered for the grocery shopping so I duly got the old vacuum out & made a start.....before I realised I couldn't find the tools. Pinged him & asked where they were. Answer? "There aren't any"! Eh? All the moaning he's done about it not picking up (it does), the foot dropping off (it doesn't), etc, & I can't recall him once mentioning that there are no tools with it whatsoever! I expect they weren't with it when we cleared out Mum's house & got thrown away. Well, I had to cave in then & issue Exchequer Permission to order a new one! I.couldn't do a proper job at all. At least we managed to get a £15 discount, a free 5-yesr warranty & triple loyalty points on my new credit card (which did finally arrive yesterday). It's a hit to our Appliances Replacement Pot, but at least we have one & it had some money in it. Had to laugh because one of the things The Beloved is now looking forward to over the bank holiday is giving the house a massive going over with this new gizmo. Well that's a pleasure I'm happy to leave to him! We have friends coming over for a BBQ tomorrow.& will probably go for a lakeside walk on Sunday, but I intend to spend the rest of the time pootling about in the garden & reading.
Enjoy your weekends, Frugal Friends,
F x

Humdinger1

foxgloves said:

Too right, @milann & don't worry about the soapbox....I practically seem to live on mine atm!

Soapbox? I'm currently living in a bandstand..  

Onebrokelady

foxgloves said:

@Cheery_Daff - You may indeed politely suggest it! But losing my temper with a wellyboot is what originally caused my tendon injury back in first lockdown so I haven't worn them since. I have deferred de-gunking of pond until tomorrow morning after jam-making, so will do it barefoot.

@QueenJess - I don't know what the average energy use is for a family of 4.....or indeed a couple with no children in our case. I agree that it would be useful to have at least a vague ballpark average for this, as something to kick against in trying to reduce our usage. 
Never discount doing lots of tiny things, as that is how Aggregate Gains Theory works. I know some of my measures are miniscule, but all together, I believe they will add up into annual savings.

@Ladyholly - Yes, I read that & had posted a suitably snarky comment on Facebook in the twinkling of an eye. Two things:
1) Does he HONESTLY think that people haven't thought of this? I'm sure most households have been doing the same as all of us on here & have been cutting back on energy use since February when these huge & thoroughly scary increases were first flagged up.
2) I am not taking this advice from somebody who, it was quite widely reported a few years ago, attempted to claim the heating of his stables on expenses aka taking tax-payer money to keep his bloody horses warm!!
This is an extremely wealthy individual & I think it would behove him to ponder the Oscar Wilde quotation - "To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque & insulting". So yes, it wound me up big time. I might join the 'Enough is Enough' movement.....though as I live in Tory-Town, there probably isn't a local chapter.
F

I've joined the EIE and the Don't Pay movements. I can't pay it simple as that ,I have cut back on everything and there's no more to cut back so they can't have what I haven't got. These MPs are claiming their energy costs on their expenses up to a point so they don't care about us 😡

foxgloves

I think we should all be writing to our Tory MPs in droves..They are largely driven by stayng in power so they can keep their jobs. What they don't like is having their inboxes chock full of emails from angry people. I can remember from a customer-focused training seminar years ago being told that for every 1 person who submits an official complaint, the assumption is that another 50 people probably felt the same way but didn't get round to it. I'd like to think members of Government might be motivated out of concern for the welfare of low & middle income families & the resulting inevitable economic recession as there will.be so little disposable income around. They're clearly not, but they ARE generally motivated by the thought of losing their parliamentary seats & status.
I will be writing to our MP this weekend. 
F

milann

Good idea Foxgloves 👍

Whatlifeis

Our MP is Liz Truss. So probably not going to get too far with that 😞

ladyholly

Ours is useless and will sit on the fence until he knows which way he is supposed to jump from what other MPs say. Unfortunately we live in a very tory area so he doesnt need to work too hard. His wife was originally in charge of track and trace and we all know what a huge success that was. He sends me a monthly newsleller that is full of bull**** mainly telling how wonderful he is.  I regularly write to him over various issues but never get  proper answer. I must admit I havent written fr a while but will do this weekend.

foxgloves

Ours is also a Tory with an unassailable majority.
F

ladyholly

I have written to him. I am not expecting it to help but at least I could basically tell him how poorly the government is doing. Wasnt that polite?