Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

And now for today's post, which will be something of nothing as it has been a routine day of grocery shopping, cleaning, chat & explaining things to cats about our zero food waste policy.
Small money saving wins:
*Grocery shopping has come in well under budget - fairly modest list - £37 at Mozzer's & £6 on fresh fruit & veg at our local market. Didn't need much fresh stuff as garden still producing well, with apples, pears, grapes & still-functioning rhubarb all contributing atm.
*Free parking as decided to step it up & get all our town stuff done within 2 hours.
*Todays garden pickings: 7 more courgettes.....which I arranged with the other 4057.
*Started sleeve decreasing on black cardi - feels like progress.
*Prolific earnings landed in bank account via P*yp*l. Moved respective amounts to our Personal Spends.
*Researched yarn prices for the remaining item I intend to knit as a Christmas present - a beautiful pair of Scandi-style mittens. They are knitted in something expensive & I was intending to sub with something cheaper. But they will be a major component of my sister's present bag - I only have such a tiny family & only one sister, & being another very keen knitter, she will really appreciate the yarn quality & will look after the mittens, so I have changed the focus of my search to find the best price on the recommended yarn. I only need 4 balls (good!) but even so, was surprised to see that it is on sale online from everything from £6.89 per 50g ball to well over £9 ! The site with the cheapest price also does free deliver over £20, which is quite a low threshold these days, so I may well go for that. 
Wishing everyone a good weekend. We are hoping to go on a city centre trip tomorrow. I have vouchers & list at the ready & we will again be paying for an hour's less parking than we usually get, as it was perfectly sufficient last time. It's just a waste paying for an extra hour 'just in case' then not using it. 
F x
P.S NOT money saving - repair of smashed phone will cost £60. But the little indie shop in town can repair it, so I decided to go ahead. Thankfully, the tech Replacement Pot will cover this, but boo to breaking it anyway.

ladyholly

sarah_diamond In my case my knitting is weird as i pick up and drop stitches for a past time and never know how or why. I di used to make a fair number of clothes for my DD when she was little but even then I wasnt brilliant. I once made her a double layer party dress which I was very proud of but I had to set in the sleeves 3 times as I kept doing it wrong.
I hate to admit my sister taught embroidery and did some beautiful work, she was also a pretty good artist and my mother taught craft to people with diisabilities and made wedding dresses for my sister, me and my daughter. I am afraid the needlecraft genes missed me.

Cheery_Daff

Very impressed at all your clothes making abilities! I can knit, but often don't 😂 I did make myself an excellent cardi once which I loved making and wearing - sadly the moths chewed a hole in the back, and I made a hash of the darning, and it's never been the same since 🙄 Might unpick and darn it again. 

I've made a few other things over the years - a couple of skirts, couple of tops etc. And I've made Mr Cheery several hats, although never one for myself, as I'm like a toddler with hats - as soon as I put them on I want to take them straight back off again 😂

sarah_diamond

I can do basic knitting, but I’m scared of actual garments as I can’t undo very well, it puts me off in case I have to pick up with needles. At least with crochet you just undo it all and have done with it. And it’s only one loop to get back to!

@foxgloves, it was the solar one I was asking about, I need one for the garden as I volunteer with guide dogs so when they stay they have to toilet in the dark!

weenancyinAmerica

foxgloves said:

That is absolutely it, @Suffolk_lass. Back in the 1980s (my first pre-professional public sector job was 1986-7), that was the case. Our salaries were lower than the private sector, but we had a decent overall package...holiday, pension, sickness pay, etc, as well as importantly, training opportunities, a career structure & therefore a good chance of progression up the ladder. Fast forward to Conservative government decimation of the public sector & endless restructuring as service heads try desperately to make the budget stretch. Cue multiple rounds of people having to apply for their own jobs & de-professionalisation, as non-qualified staff's job descriptions/job titles are changed so as to save money. 
I don't know how many thousands upon thousands of public sector jobs have disappeared - jobs with not stellar salaries but stable. All those job holders on PAYE paying into the system & doubtless supporting their local high street/business community. You simply can't compare those jobs with the zero hours, minimum wage, no or poor terms & conditions, which conveniently came along to make up the numbers.
I too think we could be standing on the cusp of a sea-change. So many people's livelihoods will now be affected. Will it mean people joining the dots, understanding the Grand Swindle which has wrecked the social & economic fabric of the UK? I'd like to think so, but it isn't going to be pretty. As a country, we should be on a war footing......instead we have an uber -rightwinger about to take over, caring more about 'woke people' (what does that silly phrase even mean?!), toilet gender & other niche populist issues which will be utterly meaningless even to their supporters when they can't afford to heat & eat. The endless refrain about tax cuts......Mr F & I are not wealthy, but we'd willingly pay a little more tax in return for better funded public services.
Ah well.....perhaps the sunlit uplands & frolicking unicorns of Brexit will even yet come galloping along to save us......
F x

Wow - are you sure you are talking about your country - it sounds just like what we are going in about every state here. I haven't figured out what "woke" people means eithers - unless the others are actually just zombies and asleep while following the crowd.

Humdinger1

@foxgloves can I throw a question out to you and other readers? I am considering what is a sensible amount of store-cupboard basics to have in; also grappling with buying now before the price goes up yet again.  In the background is the fact that as a freelancer, my most lucrative client has slowed down since April and my less lucrative sideline has been taking more of my time so the idea is to fit my budget to the lower amount coming in till things improve.  So, with DD heading off to Uni at the end of this month, I'm planning meals for just 2 of us from that point; we'll also be eating a lot more pulses to help keep warm and because I'm newly diagnosed with diabetes, I can't max out carbs as I would have done previously.   Hoping to reverse it by Christmas but will still need to be sensible on the carb front as that is a big factor in what got me here in the first place! Does 3 months' supply of staples sound about right? I can add a month's- worth of said basics at a time so that we're never down to the bottom of the barrel.   Looking forward to hearing views and the different ways people manage it.  Onwards and upwards love Humdinger xx 

foxgloves

@weenancyinAmerica - Yes, I'm very definitely talking about the UK & find the current state of affairs alternately enraging & depressing. Populism delivers very few answers because the original 'questions' are too skewed.
F

weenancyinAmerica

We are having the same problems here. People showed up with guns in small library in Idaho insisting certain books (400 titles) be banned - none of them have ever been in library. Most of them are library users that showed up - didn't heck first and now library me be closed as can't get insurance renewed. People are just behaving very badly these days.

foxgloves

Hello @Humdinger1, I've also been thinking along similar lines re pantry stores. I haven't embarked on anything particularly formal, like I did with my Brexit/Covid stash & I don't want to hoard, but I think you make a good point about stocking up on various essentials before the prices rise further.
I've been writing 'x 3' or 4 or 5 against various grocery shopping list items for the last few weeks. While there are a few gaps on the supermarket shelves, it's not so much potential scarcity as rapid price rises which is the motivating factor.
So I'm multi-buying things like oil, pasta, flour, tins of pulses, etc. What grocery items do people think will be most affected by price rises? At first, I thought flour, pasta & wheat-based items because of all the wheat usually grown in Ukraine, ditto oil. However, it's clear that this is not the only factor, as factory & transportation costs, energy costs involved in manufacturing of packaging such as glass jars, drought & doubtless a whole heap of other things will all play a part in inflationary pressures. I'm putting the occasional grocery item away for Christmas too. Yes, it's early, but my thinking is that if I know I will defo be buying certain store cupboard items, why would I not buy some of them at current prices instead of in 3 months time when they may have jumped by another 50p or £1?
I think a sensible stash in an emergency situation (& I'm kind of getting into the domestic mindset of almost being on a wartime footing, if that makes sense), is probably about 3 months? Others may disagree, so I should clarify that I'm a planner by nature & have a particularly old-style drive to fill our pantry with jars of this & that for Winter. As soon as the freezer has some space, I intend to bung in a couple of joints from our market butcher too..He has the most affordable prices in town by far & it'd be helpful to know that they'd provide plenty of meals through my usual careful division of leftovers.
And another thing.....the extent to which people stock up for peace of mind will depend hugely on their financial situation. For some folk, buying only what they need each week, with maybe 2 or 3 back-up emergency meals in the freezer, will be a wise use of limited budget. I do intend to refill all my big pantry jars, so that will mean plenty of red lentils, oats, brown & white basmati rice, pasta shapes (already done) bulghur/couscous, that sort of thing. We do usually carry decent stocks, so mainly I'm wanting to avoid even higher prices.
Thoughts welcome m'dears, as always.
F x

Cheery_Daff

We're fans of a storecupboard too, although we're probably a bit more ad hoc about it. We live in the middle of nowhere, so do get snowed in occasionally, but I like not to HAVE to go out if the weather is grim. Nearest supermarket is 16 mile round trip, and while Mr Cheery will happily go every day, I'd rather have stores in.

I don't think we've got 3 months worth of stuff though - although we probably have 3 months worth of pasta and rice - I think we massively overestimated how much we eat 🙄😂 But stuff like lentils, oats, pulses in tins, passata, coffee, hot chocolate, tea bags (all the important things).

I do want to have more of a consistent approach this winter though. We were without electric for 4 days in a row last November and the memory is still haunting me - want to be much better prepared!