Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

My Nana, who was a real Mrs Thrift, used to add her milk-bottle rinse-out water to the milk jug. I watched her do this when I was a child & said "Uurrgh, you've just put water in the milk". She said "Yes & if you'd lived through the times I have, you'd be doing the same!"
F

QueenJess

foxgloves said:

My Nana, who was a real Mrs Thrift, used to add her milk-bottle rinse-out water to the milk jug. I watched her do this when I was a child & said "Uurrgh, you've just put water in the milk". She said "Yes & if you'd lived through the times I have, you'd be doing the same!"
F

Wow, that’s the next level to what I was considering!

ladyholly

I have added water to full fat milk when we are running a bit short and I cant get to the shops. I have skimmed milk and dont do it to that.

foxgloves

@QueenJess - My Nana also used to transfer a new bag of sugar to her tin, then carefully piggle open the glued ends at the base of the bag to free any last few grains hidden within. She was only on low wages, as was Grandad, but when they married in the early 1930s, they were able to BUY a house outright because of her extremely thrifty ways. She had known hardship as a child, had seen it among local families & even in her 80s, would use the term 'pauper' as something to be feared & avoided at all costs. Financial security was everything to her. I've mentioned before how she'd say 'Spend half & save half' because then you'd be ok during those times when there was nothing to spend.

@ladyholly - I can see that would work in an emergency. 
F

foxgloves

Evening all,
A relaxing day on the whole. Have spent the afternoon trying to fathom a confusing bit of knitting pattern & have frogged & re-knitted 4 times! Think I've sussed it now. A beginner knitter would have hurled it into the hedge by now, I think. 
As the forecast looks v wet tomorrow, I've done the week's laundry & got it all dry on the line. Used shorter & cooler programmes but mitigated this by adding an extra spin at the end.
Made lentil roast this morning - 2 tomatoes, 1 apple & some frozen stale breadcrumbs used.....no, not exactly huge inroads in the 🍅 & apple glut, but the week is yet very young. Also made a pan of onion gravy so the Sunday night chef only needs to chuck the loaf tin containing roast in the oven, heat the gravy & do some veg. There'll be enough roast left to serve cold tomorrow with salad. Plenty of yesterday's blackberry & apple crumble left for tonight & tomorrow too.
We've discovered that Ash is a cracking mouser, so hopefully our annual cooler weather ingress of mice will not be quite as bad this year. I've asked Mr F to check the battery in the trap & to re-bait it in readiness for mouse season anyway.
I need a really productive week so am psyching myself up for lots of useful activity.
Wishing everyone a peaceful evening,
F x

ladyholly

Has anyone noticed that sugar bags are becoming more fragile? I have had sevral recently that have develpoed tears in them. It could be me or it could be the bags.

foxgloves

Well, I have thought that about flour bags recently, @ladyholly, but I think it's me. I have arthritis in my hands & so I grip the bags quite tightly to pick them up one-handed & my fingers go through the paper. Always make sure I use both hands to pick them up in the supermarket to prevent accidental flour-bombing of my feet!
F

foxgloves

Well, Monday's here. Mr F will be off to work in half an hour or so & I need to get cracking with a very productive & money-saving week. A distinctly non-money saving task will be booking a tree surgeon to stave off a significant problem this winter. Not looking forward to the cost of that at all & it will need to come from our emergency fund. Will cross that bridge when we come to it, however. I can be an over-thinker where problems are concerned & they don't always turn out to be as bad as I anticipate.
Right, Missis! That's two cups of coffee. Time to get a shift on.
F x

foxgloves

Phew! Only just sat down & my feet feel like plates of raw mince! Much more productive day though. This week's ironing done early doors plus baking a loaf, then the rest of this morning at my desk doing budget updates. There were a lot of them, as we've been out & about and various savings pots required attention. Did a few surveys over lunch.
Made a bit of an inroad into the tomatoes this afternoon, with 2lbs of them turned into soup - I always use the recipe from the Cranks book. Everyone likes it & I remember how my nephews used to ask if Aunty Foxgloves was going to be making any, when they were small. Anyway, all portioned up & frozen apart from a couple of portions in the fridge for this week. 
Also prepped & stewed the bucket of apples which had been looking accusingly at me from beside the back door. Divvied up for freezing - will be used for apple sauce, dessert & atop porridge.
Minimal effort required for tonight's nosebag as am serving leftover lentil roast cold with new potatoes, salad & pickled courgettes. I do like 'Cook once, eat twice'. 
Absolutely nothing exciting to tell you about (as usual!) but I'll settle for 'calmly productive' this week & try not to overthink how much our emergency tree work might cost. Will have to use Emergency Fund' & while yes, I know that's what it's there for, it still sticks in my craw that we'll have to stage a raid. 
Ah well, such is life. 
Love F x

Cheery_Daff

Well done on your tomato processing 🍅 🍅 🍅 

Good luck with the trees. I keep looking at some of ours and thinking something will need to be done... not right now, although I may live to regret that decision in the future 🙄