Put away your purse & become debt-averse

Kantankrus_Mare

Pleased the dentist visit went ok @Foxgloves. Hope the treatment plan wont be too much expense. 
Regarding the chaos that is our Government at the moment, I'm speechless. It's a shambles!! How do we all feel about the prospect of getting Boris back? I personally thought he was an OK Prime Minister, definitely a character but I feel if he gets back in again, it gives him carte blanche to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants as he knows he will get away with it. I would imagine the poor people who coundnt spend the last hours with loved ones on their death beds, whilst he partied, will be horrified at the prospect!

ladyholly

I think Boris always did do what he wanted when he wanted.

themadvix

Hi Foxgloves and co. Just wanted to say I've been reading your diary from the beginning since August and have finally made it to the end. Such a fantastic wealth of knowledge and you have such a lovely writing style (as many others have rightly said). I took on an allotment in February this year having only grown a few bits in my garden previously, so it has been great to read about your methods of dealing with a whole range of fruit and veg - and to know I'm not alone with courgette deluges! We've also converted to garlic flatbreads (made my second batch last night) and I made blackberry vinegar too for the first time (also made a second batch last night from frozen berries - I think it'll make a great Christmas present). Have also been shopping from home, especially in the garden, where I've taken cuttings and rescued a clump of chives that we found in the patio - replacing another clump that had died where we'd had fence rebuilding issues.

Glad to hear you championing zero-waste shops too - I've been getting most of my dry goods and cleaning stuff from mine since 2018, but sadly it closed down last month (absolutely gutted about this as I'd come to think of the owners as friends). It's good to hear that they are thriving in other parts of the country though. 

I did enjoy the horror in 2018 at the cost of petrol (hindsight is a wonderful thing) and have spent the last few weeks saying to myself 'wait till Foxgloves gets to the sh*tshow that's happening in Westminster now!'. Glad you both seem to have recovered from Covid well - it is not nice at all. I'll be following along from now on and may even attempt bottling some tomatoes next year (SL tempted me into bottling plums this year and that seems to have gone well).

foxgloves

Thanks for all your comments, which as usual, I enjoyed reading over a coffee. 
Welcome @themadvix. Your encouraging comments about my diary are very kind. I still turn out batches of garlic flatbreads when we fancy something cheap & cheerful of that ilk. Mr F likes them for packed lunches too. Blackberry vinegar seems to keep for ages. My current bottle must be vintage by now.....I've got blackberries in the freezer ready to make a new batch, but haven't got round to it yet.

Re the current political sh*tshow.......yes, yes, yes, I agree. I think government standards are utterly divorced from the rest of the public sector. I was employed in a profession within the public sector for the vast majority of my working life, right up until my redundancy & there is no way on earth anybody would have been able to get away with the appalling behaviour we see in government. The rules were really strict for us. I managed a couple of budgets, one of them (very much the smaller one) was mostly used for things I needed to buy for running events. I remember an occasion when I needed a very inexpensive item.....if I remember rightly, it was a pack of a dozen plain buns, which were later to be decorated for a specific theme. For such purchases, I'd save the receipt, code it to the correct budget & pass a form to the admin team for a petty cash refund. Except on this occasion, to save time, I'd purchased this work item along with a basket of shopping for myself. I highlighted the relevant item on the receipt & submitted it.......& was chastised for.........using my C**p dividend card for the purchase. I said I had bought it while doing my own shopping instead of going in work time, etc, so had just handed over my divi card as usual, as all the other shopping was my own. This counted as me profiting from spending public money......I doubt it was more than 2p, BUT the point I'm making is that the rules were very strict to avoid any kind of corruption, nepotism, self-profiting, etc, & so they should be. Yet we see government ministers handing big contracts out to donors, backers, family & friends when I remember that local authorities had to invite tenders from a minimum of 3 companies. We could never have behaved in meetings like these braying public schoolboy-types do in parliament. And if we were asked a question by a higher manager about our performance, we were expected to answer it properly, not start talking about a completely unrelated topic. 
It is gravely depressing because the economy has tanked & it is ordinary people & businesses which are feeling the pressure. In the supermarket this morning, there were people standing in front of various sections expressing disbelief about the latest rocketing prices......a woman looking at cheese said to me "Do you remember when these were always on offer at 2 for £4?". I still bought one plus one own brand on a lower tier to try......she said "Well, I can't pay that" & stomped off. Food, energy bills, mortgages, interest rates, no discernible benefits from Brexit, the return of Austerity 2 for the public sector, NHS on its knees......it's time for a General Election, not a disgraced former PM flying in with his clown shoes ready to wreak some more chaos. If it brings the lot of 'em down, I'll take it, but I would rather we did not all have to go down in the same squalid old ship for a failed ideology.
What times we're living through.
F

Humdinger1

Well @foxgloves and contributors, the latest in The G*uardian is MPs and others rubbishing BJ's claims to have 100+ backers...it's all face-saving,  abominable conceit.  Either that or his grip on reality is even more tenuous than suspected.  Boosterism gone berserk...trying to make out that his coronation is inevitable.  Onwards and upwards love Humdinger xx 

Makingabobor2

Just delurked and subscribed @foxgloves, as I've been reading for a while now.   

Agree entirely with your political opinions and must say I am quite upset the way everything turned out as I was a great follower of BJ at the start, but he let us down so badly and the only way out of this mess is a GE, but all the time Conservatives are polling so badly, they won't call one, so not sure how it will happen. We'll watch with baited breath and see what the next couple of days brings. 

Glad the dentist wasn't too bad. I hate dentists with a passion, have a real phobia about it all. 

Oh and I'm a lover of zero waste shops as well. 

foxgloves

And now for today's post - money saving highlights as follows:
*Had toast & 2 coffees before going into town so as not to succumb to coffee shop temptation today.
*Stuck to shopping list in supermarket apart from stocking up on tinned butter beans, which were out of stock last week - some noticeable gaps on shelves atm.
*A charity shop find! Have been after a particular piece of piano music for ages & had written it on my Christmas list. Well, I've crossed it off now, as I found it in a book of assorted pieces in our local charity bookshop for £1.99. And Mr F bought a CD he'd been after, which is apparently a 'hard to find' album, so smiles all round.
*Did a couple of surveys. If everyone pays me in time, I'll be able to cash out about £35 from PA at the end of this month, which I shall add to last month's £20-something which is still sitting in p*ypal. 
*Received a £5 e-voucher from JL which I will add to the 'turkey tokens'. I'd completely forgotten about it. A couple of weeks ago, I received an email saying that if I reviewed an item I'd recently purchased, they'd send me the voucher. Assume this must be a tactic to secure a few reviews for items which don't currently have many? I don't know.
*Baked bread....well, almost. It's in the oven atm.
*Sorted through the remaining 2 buckets of windfall apples & packed a bagful for my sister (family meet-up imminent), cooked another pan for us to use as dessert with yoghurt or whatever & managed to get the rest of the stored ones into a single (albeit large) basket. 
*Mr F started with take-away pizza hints over breakfast, which popped up again earlier this afternoon. I've vetoed it as I actually intend to budget one in for next weekend when we are hoping to make a long day trip & will enjoy not having to cook when we get back. So he's defrosted bacon as per meal plan & will be cooking it with eggs, tomatoes & home made jacket wedges. 
*I think I forgot to mention this.....a friend of mine secretly entered a jar of my marmalade in their district show & it won 2nd prize - the vast sum of.......£1.50. This particular friend & I enjoy a good treasure hunt around the charity shops, so I'm sure she'll love to hear that it bought 3/4 of my piano score this morning!
Not money saving at all. Bracing for a vet visit. Soot losing lots of fur on his undercarriage....over-grooming, seems itchy, but we treat both cats for fleas. Doesn't look sore & he is his usual friendly self. I wonder it it's just become a habit. Often best to get these things checked out though, as it it definitely getting more noticeable. 
Off to read my book now, as if I can get it finished, I'll pass it onto my sister & she can enjoy a freebie.
Enjoy your Saturday night, m'dears,
F x

foxgloves

@Humdinger1 - I think he is a fantasist, but also rather desperately needy. It's all about being super-important & adored. No chance of that from this quarter, I can assure you! He simply has no concept of the fact that he was sacked in all but name. I think the media should really be describing him as 'disgraced former PM....', but even that won't stop him. We noticed in town today that the broadsheet end of the Tory press were not welcoming him back as saviour of mankind. What REALLY wound me up (a downside of being such a news junkie) was reading that he is very much hoping that his new cabinet will make the public enquiry into his misleading parliament go away. I don't think this should happen under any circumstance as somebody involved with the enquiry said yesterday in a piece I was reading that they have a very significant amount of evidence & still have more sources to go through. 
The important thing now is a period of stability & common sense to endeavour to get the UK's finances & reputation back on track. We will all benefit from economical stability. 
F

foxgloves

Hello & welcome, @Makingabobor2. Nice to see you de-lurking. We always like a bit of discussion on here, so do feel free to chip in! 
Yes, you are right about us badly needing a GE, & therein lies the problem. MPs' priorities are supposed to be Country, Constituency & Party in that order. Not self, some more self & another large dollop of self. They are panicking about losing their seats, but the truth is that on the current showing, they don't deserve to keep them. Yes, we have had a pandemic & there is a war in Europe, but plenty of the current problems are entirely homegrown & have been enabled by the exact cohort of individuals now worrying they might lose their jobs. I haven't even the tiniest amount of sympathy for any of them, not a shred. I'm reserving that for all the people struggling to make ends meet in an economic situation that is not of their making.
A GE could still come about if the government collapses. It's a very factional party & depending on who is made leader, the other faction is likely to block any business they don't like from going through parliament, a bit like what happened when T. May couldn't get the Brexit deal through. If everything just comes to a stalemate, I think there'd have to be a GE. They'll fight it all the way though. Their status, salary & perks of the job are very important to them.
Meanwhile, people all over the country are having to count the pennies harder than ever. 
It's a mess.
F

milann

There’s no way Boris be allowed to stand for PM after the lies and thinking no rules applied to himself and his cronies….he’s still waiting to be investigated about misleading parliament 😡 It’s beyond belief that some of the politicians want him back 😳 I definitely think we need a general election.