Put away your purse & become debt-averse

Sun_Addict

We also have some tall trees that will need attention at some stage. We did have a 30 foot Christmas tree chopped down a couple of years ago that would’ve looked lovely in Trafalgar Square just not in our garden 😆 You won’t regret it once they’ve sorted. 

Sounds like a very productive day.

Baileys_Babe

foxgloves said:

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

I think the sturdiness of flour bags has depreciated this year, a few have torn when being picked up despite using 2 hands.

Debsnewbudget

I think I remember That when we couldn’t get flour during the covid pandemic it was not because we had no flour, it was because the paper bags were sourced from China (.??)  so maybe a new supply chain means the paper is not as strong.

Suffolk_lass

The 25k sacks (of flour) I buy from Italy are still strong. I reuse them to store veg we have grown or apples. It is comparable to SM prices but high protein and makes lovely bread. DH was to be seen throughout lockdown (less so now flour is readily available) walking round the Village with 3k sweet jars of flour, delivering them to the sourdough group. Just once he bought a SM sack (16k from Morries) - the woman on checkout could not stop laughing when he told her he was glad the police weren't watching him wandering around delivering bags of white powder 

2Scratters

Hi Peeps,
since putting up a list of stock in the freezer I have found less need to go out shopping (yes, that is the objective) it has definitely made a difference in having shopping money left over. We ended up with £50 left over. It has been stashed away into our cash fund so not dropped back into the banking system. It is the purpose for us all to be more savvy and frugal. I will see what happens this month too. Our budget is £200 for the month and this one being a 5 week month at that for 2 adults and 2 dogs (1 would prefer all hooman food if possible) I withdrew the money late on purpose too.

2 Scratters xx

milann

😂 to delivery of whit powder during lockdown. It would take me forever to use a sack of flour 😳

foxgloves

@Sun_Addict - I'll be sorry to lose it because it's a lovely gnarly ancient apple tree which crops very well, but it has definitely moved a lot this year & if it comes down, it will do damage not only in our garden but to a neighbour's property, who......well, let's just say that we call him Victor Meldrew in our house. I will be so sad to lose the tree, but it will be a relief to have the safety issue resolved. 
@Debsnewbudget - Oh yes, I remember that, but didn't know that the bags come from China. My goodness, don't we produce anything in the UK any more? You could well be right that they've been sourced elsewhere & quality has suffered. The ones used by our local windmill are still very strong though.
@Suffolk_lass - Oh I did laugh at the white powder. That must have looked really iffy!
@2Scratters - Sounds like you're doing well with your grocery budget. I've budgeted more than you for this month, which is also a 5-week month on our budget cycle too, & we are going to be close if we're not careful. Two more shops to go & it will come down to canny meal plans. I honestly don't know why we have spent as much as we have, because I'm mostly meal planning according to what we have in stock & growing in the garden. I think we front loaded it when we had friends over for a BBQ early in Week 1. Our household is 2 adults & 2 cats.
F

foxgloves

Greetings Campers!
Well no need for hurling of brickbats tonight because I have got down to more tomato-based activity this afternoon & with the soup I made yesterday too, I am getting much more on top of our produce. I've finally had my first go at bottling today. I decided I felt confident with the process, so put my audiobook on & began by sorting tomatoes, removing a few shonky ones to deal with separately. I've cut away any blemished bits of those, skinned, chopped & frozen them, so no waste. Then I skinned the remaining pile of good ones, chopped them & set about the bottling process. I've used recycled jars/lids & they look to have worked ok, as the centres of the lids have popped down, indicating that they should have sealed correctly. The jars are still cooling. I intend to put them away in the pantry, using our frozen chopped tomatoes first, because I want to see if the ones I've bottled keep properly. I didn't go mad in case the whole lot failed & I ended up losing a lot of lovely home grown fruits. I do lots of other types of preserving - chutneys, jams, jellies, fruit vinegars, pickles, curds, marmalade, etc, so it was actually nice to try something different. If they keep as they should, then I will definitely step up production next year, as it will free up freezer space. 
Other frugal activity today: Did a survey for £5, cut the last of our home grown basil & turned it into 4 more pots of pesto for the freezer & baked a focaccia topped with our red onions, garlic & rosemary. 
Then I cleaned up the kitchen, which was looking like tomatogeddon. 
Mr F is working a long shift today to cover a late arts event & won't be home until bedtime, so I'm on my lonesome. I intend to put the house to bed, then settle down to start watching a TV series, when I shall doubtless be joined by one or both of the cats. Oh, that's reminded me of the following conversation with Mr F last week:
Me: Do we have any mortar in the shed?
Him: Don't think so. What do you need mortar for? 
Me: Well, you see that hole in the mortar in the corner where the wall joins the outside kitchen wall?
Him: Yeah?
Me: Well, it's going to be mouse season very shortly & I should think it's the perfect place for them to get in.
Him: I don't know. I can't see mice going in there tbh. I don't think they'd be interested in it. 
OK, well let's move on to today, shall we? It turns out that Ash is a cracking mouser. He came down the garden with another one in his mouth while I was sitting out on the courtyard with my morning coffee. He let it go & it was so motionless on the flagstones, I got up to see if it was dead. It wasn't. It was only pretending & promptly jumped up & scampered into the house. I managed to encourage it back outside, where (you know exactly where this story is going, don't you?) it trotted confidently across the courtyard & hopped straight into that bloody hole in the wall & disappeared!! I relayed this information to Mr F & suffice it to say that 'Buy bag of mortar' is now very firmly near the top of his job list!! 
Mice are a problem for us every autumn, They are very cute, but I can't have them in the pantry (which is all they are interested in) because of the hygiene & food waste issues. I've had to chuck quite a lot of nibbled food away over the years. 
Ah well, that's it from me tonight.
F x

Sun_Addict

When we had our kitchen window replaced with patio doors we didn’t bother with another cat flap because (a) it would spoil the look and (b) I got fed up of the cat bringing in mice as presents for the dog at this time of year. Now we’ve got the young cat who catches anything that moves I shudder to think what would happen if we had one 😱

milann

I’d never realised quite how funny and cute mice can be until one was watching us ,watching it and peeping out from around a rock. I could see the inspiration for Tom and Jerry…..but that was outside……I would think very differently if I ever saw one inside 😳
Get that hole filled in…..don’t want them pilfering your pantry contents 🤞