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

MeandO

Good news on the water meter Elisheba, I think you'll see a considerable saving. I did when I moved to our current house and had a meter fitted. 

Elisheba

Evening, folks,

I'm cooried (now there's a good Scots word for you) up in bed with cocoa and a very squeaky cat. I think she's just squeaking for headrubs, but I'm never quite sure with black cat 😂. I got in from the new Beavers group I've joined about 8.15, and it didn't seem worth it to 9ut the heating on at that time but that did mean the house was quite chilly, so I'm glad I'm under my quilt now.

I have been attempting to make yogurt today in my instant pot. I just made it with the semiskimmed UHT milk I had in, and some Greek yogurt as a starter. It hasn't gone particularly thick, probably because the milk was semi skimmed, but it's in the fridge now and I'll strain it in a pillowcase tomorrow so it will end up much thicker. Not sure what I'll do with the whey as it's not really smoothie weather, which would have been the obvious answer.

I do like a bit of yogurt, and it's always more filling than milk having it in my muesli in the morning. I was also thinking if it all works out it can replace custard for having with any puddings, especially if I mix in a bit of honey and vanilla essence. So less ultra processed bought custard, and more fermented gut friendly yogurt 😁.

I had a little look at my annuals pots, and as a couple of activities are going to be much cheaper than planned I've siphoned the money to a camping/holiday pot. Quite good timing really as there are scout camps coming up and if I want to go I'll need to pay to put silly dog in kennels, and probably have to get someone in to feed black cat if they are for any length of time. And that will depend as well on whether there are vacancies at the kennels as it's already a bit late for summer, and if I can find anyone to come in to feed my cat.

Other MSE things today -
Sink wash rather than a shower
Had to wash a pet towel black cat peed on, so filled up the machine with pet blankets as well. Washed at 20 degrees with liquid soap, washing soda and green bleach
Checked my banking and nothing to report

Had a letter from Welsh water confirming they will aim to get a water meter fitted within 3 months.
Found a new walk for lunchtimes with silly dog
Made mushroom soup for lunch and had it with him bread
No spend day

Did research on the interwebs and found out I could use a pillowcase to strain yogurt, so that saved me buying cheese cloth.
Did my meter reading for the week yesterday and they were lower than normal. Now averaging £1.90 a day, or 4.9kwh.

Right, time for me to be off to sleep. I'm really tired so sorry I haven't answered all your comment directly.  Hope everyone's week started excellently. 

peewhyeff

Elisheba said:

Evening, folks,

I'm cooried (now there's a good Scots word for you) up in bed with cocoa and a very squeaky cat. I think she's just squeaking for headrubs, but I'm never quite sure with black cat 😂. I got in from the new Beavers group I've joined about 8.15, and it didn't seem worth it to 9ut the heating on at that time but that did mean the house was quite chilly, so I'm glad I'm under my quilt now.

I have been attempting to make yogurt today in my instant pot. I just made it with the semiskimmed UHT milk I had in, and some Greek yogurt as a starter. It hasn't gone particularly thick, probably because the milk was semi skimmed, but it's in the fridge now and I'll strain it in a pillowcase tomorrow so it will end up much thicker. Not sure what I'll do with the whey as it's not really smoothie weather, which would have been the obvious answer.

I do like a bit of yogurt, and it's always more filling than milk having it in my muesli in the morning. I was also thinking if it all works out it can replace custard for having with any puddings, especially if I mix in a bit of honey and vanilla essence. So less ultra processed bought custard, and more fermented gut friendly yogurt 😁.

I had a little look at my annuals pots, and as a couple of activities are going to be much cheaper than planned I've siphoned the money to a camping/holiday pot. Quite good timing really as there are scout camps coming up and if I want to go I'll need to pay to put silly dog in kennels, and probably have to get someone in to feed black cat if they are for any length of time. And that will depend as well on whether there are vacancies at the kennels as it's already a bit late for summer, and if I can find anyone to come in to feed my cat.

Other MSE things today -
Sink wash rather than a shower
Had to wash a pet towel black cat peed on, so filled up the machine with pet blankets as well. Washed at 20 degrees with liquid soap, washing soda and green bleach
Checked my banking and nothing to report

Had a letter from Welsh water confirming they will aim to get a water meter fitted within 3 months.
Found a new walk for lunchtimes with silly dog
Made mushroom soup for lunch and had it with him bread
No spend day

Did research on the interwebs and found out I could use a pillowcase to strain yogurt, so that saved me buying cheese cloth.
Did my meter reading for the week yesterday and they were lower than normal. Now averaging £1.90 a day, or 4.9kwh.

Right, time for me to be off to sleep. I'm really tired so sorry I haven't answered all your comment directly.  Hope everyone's week started excellently. 

Watched Pru Leith on tv this morning.....home-made yogurt using U.H.T milk, live yogurt, and skimmed milk powder which I think acts to thicken it.

angela110660

Went on a cheese making course recently and we were shown how to make Greek style yogurt using either UHT or full fat milk plus some starter (but as per Hugh Fearnley's recipe I added some plain yogurt)  and dried skimmed milk.  Have just made my second batch in the food flask and loving it. 

Elisheba

Evening, fellow frugaleers,

Thanks for the advice about yogurt @peewhyeff and @angela110660. Maybe next time I'll add milk powder 😁. It turned out very thick and nice, but not a huge amount of it after draining off all the whey. The whey I am using to add a little to silly dog and black cat's food each meal, as the interwebs tells me it is good for them and as it isn't smoothie season I have no other obvious use for it.

Pay day today, so I transferred money where it need to be first thing this morning. I did a rough reconcilation between what my s/s says I should have and what my bank says I have, and I appear to have a spare £50 floating around. Not sure where that has come from - it's always really difficult doing a reconciliation due to anything on my Amex after the 15th not coming out until the end of next month, and various hypothetical pots of money all floating around. So it could be that my sums are wrong, or I've missed something that hasn't come off yet. I'll see if it's still there next month, and if it is try and work out what's going on. 

I've had silly dog's pet insurance renewal quote and it's just under what I budgeted so that's good. I just need to decide if I still want £10k cover per annum, or could go lower. It's one of those things where I don't want to be left without adequate cover for want of a nail. He's got no pre-existing conditions so I could shop around, but my current provider doesn't have copayments after a certain age which I like, and if I go somewhere else and he does develop an issue I'll be stuck with them.

.
I don't need to go into the office tomorrow or next week either so that will be another £90 odd to add to my camping fund, and will mean no 5am start tomorrow - hurrah! And as the last Friday in March is Good Friday and a bank holiday thats only 2 office trips this month 😁.

I've been a busy bee this week which is why I haven't posted more. Started the Beaver Scout group which was lovely, and going on a camp now in the summer. Also went along to the WI (and was the youngest by at least 30 years 😂) and going out for a meal with them at the end of the month. Also went to a church home group which was nice, although I suspect I am much more progressive than they are. Still, it's about meeting new people and learning, and I'm not going along to stir things up so it shouldn't matter much. Oh, and I'm going out for lunch on Easter Sunday with them and church which will be good as Easter is one of the few times I dislike being on my own. 

Heating is on tonight and there is some snow forecast for tomorrow, which will be exciting if it happens. It really has been quite chilly this week so no savings made on the heating, mores the pity. Hopefully the warmer Spring weather will happen soon and then I can just use the oil to heat water once or twice a week until next Winter.

I've got an appointment for the water meter people to come out on 20th March I think. They will do an initial assessment and if it's easy they will fit it that day! From reading the literature it appears I will need to self submit readings, and will be billed twice a year. I'll be billed per cubic metre of water for both water and sewerage, which is 1000 litres or the equivalent of 12 baths, and charged a service charge as well. I think the best idea is just to put aside the money I have already budgeted monthly and that should cover everything, and hopefully there will be a fair bit of change left over. Once it has been going for a year or two I'll have a much better idea of the real cost and can adjust my budget accordingly.

I'm out with a friend on Saturday which I'm looking forward to. It's a shame due to having to drive 25 miles to the train station and back I won't be able to have a drink, but hey ho. That's country life, and it'll be cheaper 😂.

I hope everyone is all snuggly and warm this evening and feeling relaxed 😁

Elisheba

Grand energy use totals in for February -

Electric only

KWH - 130 (compared to 151 in January and 136 in December)
Cost - £52.46 (compared to £59.53 in January)

So not bad at all. I used less electric than I did in December when I was away for a week, albeit Feb only had 29 days. My DD is for £65 so a little bit of credit built up there as well.

SuzeQStan

interesting about the water meter - is it possible to do a monthly direct debit with them? Our meter is read twice a year and we get a 6 month payment schedule which after each reading bit we pay monthly which makes things a bit more predictable. Weird that you have to take the readings yourself as well.

good prices on your leccy.  How’s the oil holding up do you know?

xx

MeandO

I have a monthly.direct debit with Welsh water too Elisheba, so hopefully they can set that up for you when it's in. It's much easier to budget that way!  X

Elisheba

Ah, you are both quite right @SuzeQStan and @MeandO. I must have misread or misremembered or something. They will attempt to do a reading twice a year, and if they don't I can self submit or they can estimate, and I can pay by monthly DD. Thanks for pointing that out 😊

Elisheba

Evening, all,

I checked my oil tank today @SuzeQStan and I don't think I've even used a quarter of what's in there. At this rate I might not have to fill it until well into next year, which would give me a bit of extra cash to stash away somewhere as I'm putting aside the money to fill it this year.

In other good money news I spend half what I had budgeted on my day out with a friend yesterday. This was largely due to her paying for the lovely Lebanese lunch we had. I'll pay next time, but as we are lucky if we can arrange a get together once a year that will be some time away.

So I've added that extra cash to my camping/adventure pot, which is now up to £1000 after starting the year at zero. £250 of that has already been spent though, and £400 allocated to various trips and kennels. That still gives me £350 to play with though which is nice.

Other than that I've not spent any money this weekend. After such a busy day yesterday I've deliberately tried to keep today very quiet and busy things to a minimum. I did some hoovering and changed the cat litter earlier, went to church and took silly dog a walk, but that was it. I've been reading most of the afternoon and had a little nap as well.

On our walk earlier silly dog met a dog he took an instant hatred to. That's never happened before - he's normally ridiculously friendly with other dogs. I had to hold him by the collar to keep him away, but the other dog was a sheepdog and off lead, and silly dog kept twisting and turning to get away from me, and has some how managed to shred the back of one leg on the leggings I was wearing 🙄. Not sure if they will be mendable - I'll have to look properly later on.

Had the heating on earlier, and then lit the fire after monkey feeding time so the house is lovely and toasty now. The book I'm reading is called Jambusters and is about the Women's Institute during WW2. Figured I should gen up a bit now I've joined the WI 😆. It really is amazing to think that prior to the WI's formation during WW1 in England and Wales (it formed decades earlier in Canada originally, then spread to other countries), there were few national women's organisations, and some people (men) didn't think women would be capable of organising and running themselves. These days governments run scared from woman's organisations and know very well not to get on the wrong side of them - I'm thinking of the slow clapping debacle that made the news some years ago - was is Blair and the WI? Could it really be that long ago!!!???

I'm only at the beginning of it, but it's so interesting to read about how isolated rural women were, especially before cars were commonplace. Even putting a bus service on so rural women were able to go to a town once a week and do some shopping was an absolute game changer for women in some places. I can't imagine being that isolated - maybe a few different faces on a Sunday if you were a churchgoer, but other than that just husband and kids, possibly a few extended family faces, and that was it, month in, month out. Before the wireless you wouldn't even have heard anyone but them either.

I'll need to buy some chocolates and post them to my Mum this week for Mothering Sunday and check to see if I have a suitable card and buy one if I don't. I think I'm well stocked otherwise, although I'll need to buy some gravy granules if I'm going to the shop anyway.

I've got evening activities on Monday and Tuesday, and if it's dry after work on Wednesday I want to cut the grass. I think it's still too risky to plant the summer bulbs out so they can wait another week or two. I don't need to go to the office on Friday so that's good, and on Saturday I'm meeting friends at a yet to be decided location. So a fairly busy week, but lots of nice social activities to keep me happy and sane.

I hope everyone had had a great weekend, and is feeling refreshed for the week ahead 😁.