Frugal, thrifty, make do, mend! Let this debt come to an end!

Elisheba

Morning, all, 

Well my weekend was fab. I had a brilliant time with friends in London on Saturday, and a nice chilled out day yesterday. Money wise, it costed about what expected it to. Still waiting for the Tube amount to come out to have the exact figure, but it was worth it. Absolutely lovely to be getting back to big events post pandemic, and I won't be taking them for granted.

I also managed to get all the things I wanted to do at home done, including dying my hair 😁. It's a couple of shades darker than it was which I am liking a lot more. 

Looking at my diary for this week I need to pay the deposit for kennels for a holiday in September, and update my spending diary. I also need to ask my neighbour of they can feed my cats while I'm away. If not I'll book the cat lady to come in.

I have a friend staying next weekend so I'll need to get the house shipshape during the week. Will also need to organise picnic food towards the end of the week for the local festival we are attending. Hopefully the whole thing won't end up too expensive though. Picnic food and a bottle of wine won't break the bank 😁.

I've gone through the Radio Times (free online from my library) and marked programmes I'd like to watch this week. Will probably just end up watching Wimbledon highlights to be honest. I'm still tired from Saturday so it's going to be a quiet week for me!

Oh, and I looked at my bank accounts earlier and I earned over £8 in interest in my Rainy Day saver account last month. When you consider that's just on money that would otherwise be sitting in my current account doing nothing until it was spent that's not half bad.

Happy Monday, everyone, and I hope you all have a brilliant week! 

wildheart83

I've just read your diary from the beginning so now I'm up to date I can pop in to say hello! What a fabulous journey you're on Elisheba!

I too have a behaviourally questionable lab, while he doesn't raid the fridge he'll show me up at every opportunity, memorably parading around with my knickers while I was on a Teams job interview. He's also a rare breed - a lab with allergies so it means I can't buy the cheaper dog food but I add veg to his meals to bulk out the ridiculously expensive dry food he's on. 

I'm also north of the border and probably not too far from where you'd like to relocate to, and I must admit I took this area for granted until I got the furry child. Now I love nothing more than heading off into the wilderness 
 

SuzeQStan

Excellent win on the interest return Elisheba -  and so glad your weekend was fab! 

Elisheba

Afternoon, all,

Thanks for reading all of this @wildheart83!  Hope some of it was helpful :-).  I grew up north of the border although I'm in England now.  Lovely as the countryside around me is down here, I do miss the ruggedness of Scotland.  Its not so bad now we are all out and about again, but I was so homesick for Scotland during the pandemic!  Your Lab story made me laugh.  Mine once found a pair of leopard skin knickers when we were out on a walk, and wouldn't put them down - so we walked through town with them hanging from his mouth!  It was so embarrassing! 

Thanks @SuzeQStan - was a really great weekend, and I'm chuffed about the interest  

Very quiet on the moneysaving front this week.  Apart from the £40 I needed to pay as a deposit for kennels in September I haven't spent anything since Saturday I think.  Deleting my card details from Amazon (again) has worked its magic like usual.  I'll have to spend some money tomorrow, to get picnic food in for the weekend and probably on a few things like marmalade I have run out of.  I'm not in the office tomorrow though, so that'll save £18 on train fares.  It was too much hassle to bother with the office with the industrial action and not knowing if trains would run or would be cancelled or whatever.  

I've done a bit of house keeping today as I have a friend over this weekend, and I'll get more done tomorrow and Saturday morning.  I'm really tired today for some reason so will probably have an early night and hopefully feel more refreshed tomorrow.  I'm so unhealthy when I'm tired so will probably have a tin of fruit with some custard for dinner!  Sweet and easy, and I can worry about healthy things tomorrow.

I'm still waiting to see what the remaining interest will be on the BC I transferred last month.  Its normally added on between the 3 - 5th, so weird it hasn't happened yet.  I'd like to think that means it won't be added and I'll be up about £25, but I can't see how that would happen.  I know I paid the balance off in full but surely there would be an interest charge for before that?  Oh well, all I can do is keep an eye on it.  Also no date on my new CC for when the DD for that will start coming out - I imagine before the end of the month but will wait and see on that one as well.

Annoyingly tomorrow when I am stuck indoor working is forecast to be sunny all day, and Saturday when i will be sitting out at the local festival is due to rain - blooming British weather!

Its been an interesting day on the family front.  One of my brothers was diagnosed with a genetic condition a couple of years ago that only Scottish and Irish people get - hemochromatosis it's called.  Means your body can't expel iron so it builds up and fries your organs.  You need to get blood taken regularly to keep your iron levels normal.  Anyway my other brother's test results have now come back and he has it as well.  He's younger thankfully and non symptomatic so hopefully it'll be a lot easier to get his iron levels sorted out and no damage will have been done.  I've been tested and I'm a carrier, but I guess my sister and most of my nieces will need to be tested at some point as well just in case.   Feels so strange to know we all have or are carriers of a genetic condition.  Thankfully it is one that has treatments though, and not something horrendous like Huntingdon's.

Anyway, I think that's all the news from Elisheba land.  Hope everyone is well and having a lovely, relaxing week!

Elisheba

Afternoon, frugalistas!

I did write a post yesterday but managed to delete it and couldn't be bothered writing again!

Its laundry day in Casa Elisheba, so all the clothes are washed and hung up.  Now just need to take all the bedding and what not down for a boil wash.  I'll have to see what I can hang up on doors as the forecast is for rain later on.  

Moneywise, I think I spent about £30 at the festival at the weekend (I do have it all written down in my Notion chart, just can't remember exactly).  It would have been less if I hadn't bought a round at the beers tent - extortionate as you might imagine.  But all in all that's not too and and included food and wine, and there was so much food left over I had it for lunch yesterday and today.  I'm feeling a bit social-ed out to be honest.  I'm supposed to be going to work drinks this Friday and a beer festival on Saturday, but I'll have to see how I feel nearer the time.  I'm not viewing either occasion with great enthusiasm at the moment.

In good news after all the cleaning and tidying I did for my friend coming over, my house is looking lovely right now!  The only place there is any mess is my bedroom where I have dumped piles of clothes I am in the middle of sorting out for charity, bin and selling.  I really need to dedicate a bit of time to this but I'm not sure when.  I never feel like it on work nights, and my weekend diary is pretty full for the next few week.

I am all up to date of my spending notes, and still under budget for everything.  I think my personal spending will go over budget though . With a London trip this month is was fairly predictable, but i am trying to keep everything as reined in as possible.

My food plan for the week is fairly simple - burger, salad and chips for a couple for nights, sausage, peas and mash for a couple of nights, ready meal lasagne if I am in on Friday night, and I'll probably make a cheese and broccoli pasta bake for the weekend.  Lunches are finishing off the picnic food from Saturday, and then I'll make some soup.  

I need to buy a new strap for my Fitbit - it keeps falling off and I nearly lost it at the festival on Saturday.  Its very annoying as I only bought the current strap in March! Not sure what style I want though so will need to think about it.  

Hope everyone is having a great Monday and is looking forward to the week ahead   

Elisheba

Evening, all, 

Feel like today has been fairly productive. All the laundry has been done and hung up. The fuse had blown in the machine's plug at the end of the first wash, but thankfully I had a spare and only took a jiffy to fix.

It doesn't look like any extra interest is going to be added to my old credit card, so that is nice. Must be because it was paid off in full before a certain point in the month. I had budgeted about £25 for it so nice to know that is saved. 

I watched some frugal YT videos this evening, and some slow living ones. Always good to inspire me and help me stay on track. 

I'm reading three books right now, but none of them are inspiring me much. One is an Escape to the Chateau book, and it's okay but not really catching my attention which is strange as I've always really liked to TV series. One is by the journalist, John Humphries and his son, Christopher, as they try to build a house in Greece. I always hope these sort of travel books will capture my attention like A Year in Provence did all those years ago, but they rarely do. Last one is an Alexander McColl Smith book - latest one in his Isabel Dalhousie series. I'm afraid I'm finding Isabel and her attractive younger husband a bit dull this time round though.

Hopefully I'll get them all finished soon though and can move on to something a bit more interesting.

Anyway, sleep well everyone and I hope you are fabulously rich (but still frugal! It is a lifestyle after all!) in your dreams 😴

Makingabobor2

You sound like me with books. I like to have more than 1 on the go at a time. Normally a fiction & couple of non fiction. 

beanielou

The Alexander McColl books got all to similar for me.
I know someone who knows him.

WinterWarrior

I agree with the views on Alexander McColl Smith books, I used to love them (although Isabelle was my least favourite), but they slowly got duller until I stopped following them. I tend to have a book and an audiobook on the go at the same time, as audio books are so useful for multi tasking. 

Elisheba

Hmm. Just having a quick look at the new format. You can see a bit more info now on a mobile, but still no way to see who has @ you in a conversation, or a way to get back to the 1st post in a thread on the mobile, so not not hugely impressed so far 🙄