Put away your purse & become debt-averse

Onebrokelady

Wow, what a successful day,I love how creative you are with your shopping from home

foxgloves

Thanks, OBL. I think it's just being resourceful, really, although I've always liked making things & been crafty. We didn't have a TV when I was growing up, & I think I filled lots of my time (apart from all the reading I did) making things & trying various crafts, etc. The downside of crafting is, of course, that if one is also spendy, there is soooo much great paraphernalia to buy! I wonder how much crafting added to my overall debt total back in the day........

More resourcefulness today when I was decluttering the wooden tray at the back of my desk. I did make quite a few gift tags after Christmas, using suitable Christmas cards we received & adding ribbons/thread, etc, from my stash. I only did simple ones though, & the pile of more fancy recycled festive resources I also saved at the time got shoved in this wooden tray where they were nicely out of sight, out of mind. My tolerance for clutter is quite low at the moment, so when I found myself decluttering them into another container 'to deal with nearer Christmas', I thought 'Noooooo', if I get them done now, then they can go straight away where they belong in my wrappings stash & I can cut out the intervening period where they just sit around cluttering up somewhere else. So, with my little pile of red felt reindeer, other bits & bobs, some gold thread, recycled stash, scissors, hole punch & a glue stick I nicked off mr f, I sat & knocked out 10 nice gift tags......& as soon as the glue dried, away they went. I think saving stuff to be resourceful is one thing, but there is a bit of a time element too, with re-purposing it. This was one pile of stuff which had just sat around too long & I'm glad I used it before I binned it.
I also packed away some recycled tissue paper, which came as packaging, some large brown envelopes, which can easily be re-used as parcel paper or with an address label, a couple of jiffy bags & some strong card. All useful packaging, which apart from brown tape, is something I never, ever buy, as there is so much useful stuff which can be saved & re-used for free. Then that reminded me I had 3 ebay items to re-list, so I got onto that too. One job often leads to another, doesn't it?
Anyway, this was really only a quick 'Hello' - I need to go & put my loaf of bread in the oven before it tries to climb out of its tin!
Cheers all,
F x

Onebrokelady

My crafty hobbies were definitely a contributor to my debt,I have bought so much stuff over the years,non of it has been wasted because most of it was kits to make something specific,there's quite a lot still to make that I haven't got round to yet but I will at some point,the problem I have now is the things I'm going to be making will take the place of clutter I've got rid of, I might have to give away the finished product

foxgloves

That's what I'm planning to do, OBL. I'm going to make as many nice gifts as possible from my yarn & craft stash. It will save money as well as use up resources which are taking up a fair amount of space.
F

foxgloves

I've had to stay in today as we'd booked someone to come & remove a tree. Decided to try baking some muffins....as in the traditional English yeasted bread muffins, not the big American cakey buns.
I've got 2 recipes for these - one is a more tricky looking wholemeal & oat version. The other is the basic version from my favourite Mary Berry book. That's the one I should have used! But I went for the other one. I'm a confident baker & rarely have a baking failure, but oh my days, those oat muffins!! The dough was so stiff it needed 3 extra additions of water before I could even knead it. Finally got it into as smooth as it was ever going to get & put it to prove. ....only it wasn't playing.....& not only that but it was having a massive sulk & taking its ball back home! Recipe promised a silky dough doubled in size after one hour. After 3 hours, I reckon this had grudgingly expanded about a centimetre & a half. Divided into 10 as instructed. Muffins are quite flat & puffy, so was surprised when recipe said 'Shape into balls & place on tray'. After another 40 mins, they were supposed to be puffed up & doubled in size. Yeah, right! Well I was sick of them by then & shoved them in the oven, cussing 'em as they went in & cussing 'em as they came out.
Yes! I have spent my time today baking hockey balls! I'm not kidding. One of these things could shatter a shin bone at forty paces!
For anyone thinking 'Ooooh, Foxgloves is finally going to waste some food'.....I didn't! Half of them have been pounded into submission & will be put out for tomorrow's bird food, thus a little saving on seed, & the other half have been zizzed up in the food pro (needed the turbo setting!) & frozen for breadcrumbs. If you should happen to see a news item from the north midlands this week about vet surgeries being overwhelmed by large numbers of birds with dislocated jaws, you'll know the've visited our garden.
And next time? Mary Berry it is!
Enjoy your evenings, all.
F xx

Onebrokelady

😂😂😂😂 this sounds like me trying to make bread

foxgloves

Lol, OBL. I bake almost all our bread, including sourdough, cobs, pizza bases, etc, but those muffins were one crazy recipe. Plan to do the Mary Berry one soon, to recover my pride!

foxgloves

Morning readers,
Have just popped in for coffee. Am slarmed in mud & old bits of leaf, but am having a very productive couple of hours clearing one of our big flower borders.....& yes, I am finding freebies! I will !!!!le out some shuttle trays from the shed in the next few days & go round the garden hunting for good strong zelf-sown plants. Have already spotted 2 big sweet rocket plants - they were so pretty last year, purple & white, & are tall so great at the back of the borders. Also seen a big foxglove which has popped up in one of the raised beds & I know I will find further free planty treasure as I progress with cutting back & clearing. It's good 'green gym' too - I'll take physical garden labour over organised fitness any day.
Oh, & just in time for Valentine's Day tomorrow, our robin has a girlfriend. He brought her to see me today & she seemed distinctly unimpressed with the remains of the hockey puck muffins!
Right.....coffee break over. Am off back outside to get stuck into the back of that bed.
Have a productive & non-spendy day, all.
F x

foxgloves

Oooh, I've been censored for a word....albeit a regional one. To 'f*ckle out' meaning to clear out. Missing letter is an 'e'.......which means that MSE considers 'f*ck' with an 'e' to be a much ruder word than I do.
Oh well, back to my secateurs.....enough of semantics.

1LuckyLady

foxgloves wrote: »

hockey puck muffins!

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: :rotfl: oh that made me chuckle