Put away your purse & become debt-averse

thriftmonster

That's really beautiful

Onebrokelady

Beautiful wreath Foxgloves 😊

Sunshine_girl2

Lovely wreath foxgloves. 

foxgloves

Awww, thanks for all your lovely comments about my DIY wreath. I swear to you that they are not difficult to make at all. I've never done any floristry or similar. I've put up a photo of the metal inside ring of a bought festive wreath. If anyone fancies having a go next December, then save this ring from a bought wreath or scrounge one from anybody you know who has bought one & will almost certainly be binning it by Twelfth Night. 
You can use greenery such as fir, holly, ivy, bay, rosemary, juniper or whatever, or just twigs. I don't bother covering the ring with moss to start it off, though I'd rake it out of my lawn if I wanted to. Pick up any nice pine cones while you're out & about over the coming year & earmark a few spare baubles or buy some £ shop ones. The ribbon can be one from your recycled wrappings stash or £ shop, whatever you have. All these additions can be saved with the ring to use year on year. 
I just take each piece of greenery, trim it to manageable length & fill the ring, anchoring it in the 'grabbers' which you can see around the edge. Really ram it in. Don't worry about sticky-out bits because you sort them out when you wire on the baubles & cones. I just use garden wire & reuse it each year. Space them out as you want them & secure them on with the wire. Save a piece of wire to make a hanging loop for the top or use more ribbon or string. Tie your ribbon on & with a rousing chorus of falalalalah, you are done! On Twelfth Night, compost the greenery & save your adornments & centre ring for next year.
It's not difficult, promise.
F x

foxgloves

Afternoon Campers!
The insomnia seems to be taking a break atm (probably spoken too soon now.....) & it is such a pleasant change to wake at 5.45am instead of Truly Stupid O-Clock. Got up raring to go, though after 7am, this may have been the caffiene!
Anyway, today's few positive wins on the financial front:
*Postie brought my CC statement. Honestly, if you'd told me in my 30s that I'd EVER receive a December credit card bill with a balance of £00.00, I'd have fallen off my chair howling with laughter (while inside, secretly crying at the thought of January & February......)
*Baked sausage rolls. Had one for my lunch, left one out for Mr F & froze the rest. My nephews are sausage roll hoovers.
*Two sausages left after this......debated whether worth freezing them, but I did, as it can be very useful from a frugal point of view to roll things forward. A sausage each added to a quick meal of eggs & jacket wedges or sliced & added to a pasta bake....well either of those will be useful once my 2023 budget goals are underway.
*Decided to get ahead of myself by poaching fish & hardboil the egg ready for making fish pie tomorrow - I always save all the trimmings from cutting up our 6-times a year fish-box order & freeze for making fish pie, so it feels like an extra meal in a way.
*Rummaged around in freezer for something for Mr F's packed lunch tomorrow & have extracted the last portion of home made mushroom soup. He can take a sausage roll too.
*Feels like a 'free' meal tonight......tomato soup which I batch-cooked during the tomato glut & toast. I also found a generous container of poached cinnamon pears in the freezer so took those out for dessert. 
*Did some surveys.
*Credited the vast sum of £4.01 back to December's budget as I over-estimated some printing costs. Every little helps. 
*A bit of free fitness & fresh air tidying up the back courtyard. Got rid of a trug of overgrowth & dead leaves, then decorated our little outside potted fir tree with the rest of my 'outdoor' baubles & cones leftover from making the wreath. Festive & free. Actually, although potted fir trees can be expensive, this one was utterly free. Years ago, my Mum gave me a pack of Christmas tree seeds which she received free on one of her gardening magazines. There were 5 seeds. They all germinated. They were such dear little things......teensy tiny, but v definitely Christmas trees! I decided to grow them on to a few cms then give one to each of our 3 nephews who were v young at the time, keep one for myself & also the 'spare' in case any of the boys' baby trees carked it. So much for that idea! One by one those tiny trees wilted & died until I had just one left. Fully expecting it to follow in the footsteps of its siblings, I kept it .....& it grew......& grew.......& grew.......very slowly, until now, about 12 years later, it's about 3' tall & looks like a real Christmas tree. 
Actually, I must look out for those seeds (they were a well-known brand, if I remember rightly) as they'd be a nice inexpensive little family activity to enclose in a Christmas card or for a present. I bet lots of children AND adults would enjoy growing their own Christmas tree.
Anyway, I do go on, don't I........? Time to go around closing the curtains. Noticed the reduction in gas cost on the smart monitor at lunchtime. It was still at less than £2.50, which just goes to show what a big expensive those freezing external temperatures make.
Peace,
F x

EssexHebridean

Loving the idea of the home grown christmas tree!

And YES to the reduction in energy costs - my little monitor told me that we were a full 8kWh down on electricity when I got up this morning even compared to yesterday - goes to show how much less hard the heaters are having to work. The bathroom towel rail has also been consuming notably less than last week, too! 

Makingabobor2

Love that you grew Christmas trees.  In our garden we have a very large pot with an oak tree. When DH was about 9 ( he's now 53), his grandparents took him collecting acorns and he planted one. His parents kept it for years and when we got married they gave it to us. We have potted it on & its now about 4' 6". Probably would have been higher if we hadn't kept it in a pot and kept cutting it back each year....don't really have room for a fully gown oak tree....lol

foxgloves

@EssexHebridean - Yes, the warmer external temperatures are definitely making a difference, & they stand need to here, having received December's statement from the Cephalopods this morning (more later....)
@Makingabobor2 - I do like the idea of having an oak tree grown from an acorn. A colleague once offered me one in a pot & I declined as we had a lot of trees - I never considered actually potting up into a bigger tub & growing it like that. I think I will look to sow an acorn next year. That's a free activity if ever I saw one, as we often pass them when out on walks.
F 

foxgloves

Hello my little frugal mince pies,
Productive day so far, but a no-spend one. Been too busy to go anywhere & in any case, I haven't got any wheels as Mr F has the car for work in the week. Didn't fancy wheeling bike over long muddy lawn & through house. Activity thus far: 2 loads of laundry done & on heated airer - that will be the last laundry until after Christmas - Changed bed linen, made royal icing & iced Christmas cake. It needs to dry for 24 hrs now, then I will add a nice ribbon. Baked bread, defrosted stewed apples for dessert, did quite a few surveys - lots of PAs around today, which means I've been bumping up my earnings balance ready for cashing out at the end of the month. Finished decorations - no new ones purchased this year, although I did receive 2 fabulous cat ones as a gift which I have hung on a vintage lamp on my piano so I can admire them while I play carols! 
Energy bill stuff.......Oh well bah humbug where that's concerned. Received monthly statement from the Tentacled Ones this morning & was horrified to see that we used a total of £274 - 10's worth of energy over the past month - £203.56 on gas & £70.54 on electricity. Obviously this is the most ever in a month. Compared with last month & did an adjustment to allow for the week we were away & confirmed that this month containing the freezing spell of weather, we spent an additional £113. Then compared with the coldest month before the price increases, which was February this year. Interesting that we spent almost exactly double on gas this past month than we did in February, which I think reflects the doubling in energy costs rather than any profligacy on our part. 
After the shock of that total, I did consider that we have already implemented some simple changes, but not until we were already into that billing period, so those savings won't fully show until next time. They were things like moving the thermostat out of the cold spot to an actual room to prevent the boiler triggering on so frequently & also decreasing night-time thermostat setting to 10 deg rather than 15, as that was still high enough to bring the heating on when we are tucked up in bed. To compare, by early afternoon during the cold snap, our smart monitor would be showing over £5 of gas, but today, at a similar time, it was at £2.77. I think we are all still getting used to these high costs/new readings & it will probably take a little more time to get used to what is scary, as opposed to super-horribly-scary. 
Also on the financial front.......anyone who has stuck with my diary for a long time, will maybe remember the Debtisodes from my spendy past, including the panic-buying of a Christmas outfit in the last few days before the festivities? A behaviour I considered to have been long consigned to the waste bin of history. Hmmmm. Woke up this morning & found myself contemplating what to wear on Christmas Day. I have a nice dress from one of my favourite shops (the 'tropical storm' one) which I had intended wearing, but as I lay there (pre-coffee), I convinced myself that it would no longer fit. Yes, the depletion rate of our savings pots is not the only thing which has been growing this year. By the time I got up, I was seriously talking myself into a new outfit on 23rd when I go into town!! Two coffees & some toast later, I'd got a grip. Went upstairs & tried on what is a very nice dress & it fitted perfectly well. Made sure I tried it with another layer, just so I couldn't convince myself of the need for a little sparkly black cardi or similar, & it works with a black cardi I already own, my black poncho & also a lighter-weight jumper with dangly bits around the hem. so no need to buy anything. Thank goodness! That is exactly how I came to waste money every single Christmas on outfits like the dress I kept cutting bits off, the sequinned triffid top & the off-the-shoulder baco-foil number. Saved from my Old Self by rational thinking & a timely trying-on session at home!
Well, 2 more tasks to do today - make a fish pie & clear space for arranging Christmas presents in a way which won't be too attractive to cats - have already found Ash sitting smugly among my pile of clean festive table linen this morning.
Oooh, I can see another survey has just popped up. 
Love to all,
F x

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, well done on your lack of shopping! Excellent work!