Put away your purse & become debt-averse

Cheery_Daff

Impressed with your 10 jobs foxgloves! Chilly here too, although the sun is shining. Still, it's currently 14 degrees at the cold end of the house so no heating yet (but definitely a fleecy waistcoat thing!) 

Sayschezza

The tree surgeon you choose may want the apple tree because it's the wood most people want for their open fires. I know when we had an open fire in a previous house we bought apple logs and they were not cheap. Maybe there is room to bargain a cost reduction at least.

foxgloves

@Sayschezza - I'm confident the tree chap won't rip us off & will quote a fair price for the amount of work. He has a wood burner so may well off-set with free wood, I don't know. He's been doing various jobs for us for nearly 20 years so we know each other well. 
F x

foxgloves

Afternoon Campers,
I've just done random jobs today, but some of them money saving in their own way:
*Baked a sourdough loaf

*Cut 3 bunches of sage, tied & hung from kitchen beam for drying.
*Rounded up a few more ripe tomatoes from my tomato-ripening stations.
*Applied anti-vine weevil.nematodes to my potted heucherella collection. Evil Weevils bound to be around & up to no good.
*Cleaned bathroom

*Wielded the Drain Weasel to tackle slow running basin. (Never again will I pay a call out charge for a plumber to come in, perform two plunges & invoice me for an hour).
*Vacuumed downstairs & the stairs.
*Trimmed a lot of loose threads from stair carpet (which was new last November) which have been clawed up by Ash & Soot, though tbf, Ash is the main culprit here. 
*Knitted more of my friend's birthday socks. Am up to the heel flap now.
Intend to do nothing tonight, just relax & read.
F x

Cheery_Daff

Lots of work there! I'm very inspired by you knocking loads of annoying little jobs off your list 😊

CRANKY40

We have the same stair carPET problem as you although we only have one purry monster. Despite beong the sole owner of several scratching posts she seems to prefer our leather sofa and the stair carpet. 

Are socks easy to knit? I'm a long time but fairly plain knitter. I can follow an easy pattern and I can cable, moss stitch etc but every time that you mention socks I wonder if I could make them too. 

foxgloves

@CRANKY40 - Knitting socks is easy once you've figured out how to turn the heel. On the very first pair I tried to knit, I couldn't get this right, ripped them off the needles & threw them in the bin..I didn't have another go for a few years, when my friend bought me a pretty ball of self-patterning sock yarn, a pattern & a set of size 2.5mm DPNs..This time, I managed the heel. The trick is to follow the instructions to the letter without over-thinking them. The heel-turning process doesn't feel instinctive, but if followed, it will work. Since then I've knitted absolutely loads of pairs. They do make a nice gift & are not expensive to post. All the men in my life really like them so are happy to have a new pair at Christmas or birthday. And you only need a single 100g ball of most sock yarns (i.e Zigzag to knit a pair, even for the resident clodhoppers in our house (size 11).
If you decide to have a go, use a basic stocking st pattern without any la-di-dah fancy pants lace panels or cables, but use a self-patterning sock yarn so that they look complicated & interesting. I used to.knit socks on commission but got rather bogged down with requests for multiple pairs on which I couldn't realistically recover the cost of my time. 
Most of my socks are knitted on size 2.5mm DPNs & the only other equipment required (apart from scissors & a darning needle, of course) is a stitch marker so you know when you are starting a new round.
Warning....therere so many lovely sock yarns, it can get a bit addictive!
F

foxgloves

Thanks @Cheery_Daff - It's certainly a good feeling getting annoying jobs done. At this rate, I might even get my mending pile tackled!
F 

CRANKY40

Thanks for the info 😊

Sun_Addict

My cats like to claw the stair carpet too. We’re getting a new one on Tuesday, hoping they won’t claw this one but I’m sure they will 😬