Put away your purse & become debt-averse

Blackcats

My cats claw the stair carpet too and it seems they must have temporary heating loss while they scratch away to their hearts content.  I call them and tell them to stop but they keep going until they've had enough. 

I hope the tree surgeon's costs are ok - better safe than sorry.

Humdinger1

An old friend had 2 cats who clawed a hole in the mattress directly under the pillow.  They would then punch up to wake friend up when they wanted feeding; 5am was a particularly favoured time....

marionmgcars

for the sock knitters amongst us, I follow Winwick Mum, she has a free basic sock pattern you can download and lots of utube videos to help.  Good luck.  

Cheery_Daff

I've knitted several pairs of Winwick Mum socks now! 😊

CRANKY40

Thanks for the info @marionmgcars 😊

foxgloves

Hello Saturday Savers,
Re comments about cats & their infuriating relationship with carpets, I agree (& thank goodness I don't have cats who punch me in the head through chewed mattress holes, @Humdinger1, what an absolute pair of little sods!) & it is very frustrating. While it's universally known that cats are not 'trainable' in the way that dogs are, my Mum always believed that ALL cats could learn that a strict finger point & the word 'No' said loudly & clearly was perfectly learnable. And I'm sure that's true, it's just that our current pair don't want to learn it. Ash came in through the flap this morning, rounded the corner from the kitchen to the hall & instantly fastened his claws into the stair carpet for a bit of early morning shredding. Mr F yelled at him, but had to go out & yell a 2nd time as claw-wielding wilfully continued. I don't want to buy a water pistol because Ash was the most nervous cat I'd ever encountered when he arrived & has turned into a cuddle bucket, at least with us, so I don't want to undo our progress. At the same time, we paid a lot of money for our new stair carpet, which isn't yet even a year old, & I am not going to stand by while it is wrecked. Bloody cats, can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em!
Not a lot to report today. Mr F's had to work this afternoon (long tedious saga) but we did pop into town first thing for a coffee, charity bookshop & a few other places. I treated myself to a couple of new lipsticks for the Autumn. I have one to use up, but the other one I've been using the last couple of weeks went in the bin first thing. I bought it a while ago as I wanted something in a brighter coral shade to go with a certain couple of outfits. It has long infuriated me that lipstick packaging means that we pay for a product despite not being able to use a third of it & I've always done the old 1970s Jackie magazine tip of getting the last bit out with a lip brush. This lippy hadn't even got to the lip brush stage. It doesn't suit me, it doesn't give me any kind of a lift & I am not going to do penance for having wasted money on it by wearing it to the last. Binned. The End. Wearing one of my new ones now. Much better. Feel like me again!
Spent a long time looking at various cementy wall-filling unguents. I'd have just bought a box of cement & made it up myself, but Mr F wanted to get something already mixed. I saw another mouse heading for that hole in the wall yesterday, until it was headed off at the pass by an ambitious series of cat pounces. He's insisting that he'll be able to have it filled this weekend. 
I've done a bit more research for my family member's family tree gift this afternoon. One of my genealogy subscriptions lapses tomorrow & I shan't renew it as I'll be finished with it by then. £20 a month saved by not renewing this month. I can defo use that elsewhere. That's the trouble with subscriptions, it's easy for them to drift on during periods of non-use & I wanted to avoid that. 
First morning we both felt cold today. When I came downstairs, the thermostat was at 17.5. It hasn't dropped below 21.5 for absolutely ages. I wore a jacket into town, tights, socks & boots, plus a warmer dress. I must get my winter clothes bag out & do a sort out & changeover. 17.5 would have triggered the heating to come on, as we set it at 18 degrees, but needless to say it isn't going on until Oct 1st at the earliest. We've said that if we get to Oct 1st & we still don't feel we need it, it will stay off a bit longer. We'll see how it goes. Having read that news story today about the oil industry's real attitude to environmental concerns/climate action, I don't feel inclined to give them any more of our money than I have to. 
Right, must sign out & go & vacuum upstairs, then that's all the cleaning done until next week.
Cheers, F x

foxgloves

Oh .....while moaning about lipstick, I should have mentioned the positive ££ thing, which was that the brand I bought had a 3 for 2 offer. I intended to buy 2 lippies anyway so was also able to choose a free mascara. I won't even peg the washing out without mascara on! (Aware that I'm sounding quite tragic here!)
F x

ladyholly

If its any comfort Mr H and previously Miss W both try to dig holes in the hall carpet. We desperately need a new one but I refuse to do anything about it until we no longer have burrowing dogs.

Jellytotts

When we moved (3years ago) we went without any carpet (luckily we had original teak parquet to restore) and the cats now do all their shredding on logs placed around the garden. 

As for make up, I realised on finding my old make up bag that I hadn’t used it since moving here (so at least 3 years ago) and then traced back the last time to a big family funeral 7 years ago…said make up got tipped into the bin and wont be replaced.  I skipped the “girlie” gene that’s into hair/make up/shoes/clothes/handbags/perfume and just get on with life. Cut my own hair (pixie cut of sorts), no dye, no fast fashion, no designer bags or shoes no lotions or potions.,..as such DH has no idea about these sort of things and was flabbergasted when we saw a booth advertising “lash lifts” at £45.  He was incredulous that it was a thing and that it demanded £45 a time.  I listed a few other things I could be wanting on a monthly basis and he was truly mind blown that such things exist (he’s a science nerd and not at all fussed by social norms).   Which works to my advantage because I can’t be tagged with them either 

Whatlifeis

Re cats and expensive stair carpets, I’m rather late to the discussion I’m afraid. 

After much yelling (to no avail), we sprayed our stairs with cat repellant (that did nothing) and then F*br*z* which they hated and did actually work. They will always sharpen their claws on something though - so for the sake of our sofa, we made space for a very big scratching post from A**zon Basics. Yes it cost nearly 50 quid, but one of the best investments we ever made as they absolutely love it (the size is important- they chase each other and climb it) More importantly our stairs carpets were saved.
Incidentally you can undo most of the damage on the stairs carpet by gently shaving off the bobbly bits on the top that have been shredded.