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

peb

Retail price index probably.

Ps, I've got some fleecy leggings from Primark - for home working 

Elisheba

peb said:

Retail price index probably.

Ps, I've got some fleecy leggings from Primark - for home working 

Yeah, that's the one I couldn't remember - thanks @peb 😁

Elisheba

Morning, all 😁

Everything toddling along at Elisheba Cottage at the moment. My smart meter was finally fitted yesterday,ich to my disappointment as I would have preferred them giving me £30 ad infinitum, every time they didn't make an appointment 🤣. Still, now it is fitted I can monitor electricity use a bit more and possibly cut it a tiny bit.

Silly dog is currently crying at the bottom of the stairs, which means that black cat has vomited breakfast upstairs and he desperately wants to eat it 🙄. Which means I have some cleaning up to do I suppose. It's a shame I can't let him upstairs to clean it all up, but black cat is a lot happier when he can't get near her and he can destroy far too much that is upstiars so he is strictly a downstairs dog.

I had a lovely day out with a friend on Saturday to my nearest city, but it was pricey. £8 for parking alone, then coffee and cake, then entrance to an exhibition, then lunch, and then I treated myself to a new release signed hardback which wasn't cheap. Still, I don't do an expensive day like that very often and it was fun.

No office this week - woo hoo! It's ridiculous how much more relaxed I am in an office free week, and it gives me my Thursday and Friday evening back as well, as on office weeks I need to be in bed early on Thursday and am totally wiped out on Friday.

I may pop to the C00p for milk later on. Probably got enough to last until tomorrow but don't like to risk it - need my milky coffee when I wake up!

Now I need to go and investigate back cat and the vomit. Silly dog is getting louder and louder 🙄. Then a shower and to get ready for work. I think I'll change the bedding today on my bed, and then get a washing done. Otner than that, ju.st a quiet day with work and a dog walk. Hope everyone is well and has a great Thursday 😁

Makingabobor2

Have a good day. Was the signed book, the new one by the lovely MH, by any chance? Or Nancy B? I am after getting both those...but I have a wish list of books to buy. 

beanielou

The new Rebus? 

Elisheba

Afternoon, folks and happy weekend!

The new book was none of those guesses, and is nothing to do with money saving at all 🤣. It's the new book by a chap called James Rebanks. His previous books were A Shepherds Life, and English Pastoral, both of which I thought were extremely interesting and very, very well written. This one, called The Place of Tides, looks to be a bit different but I thought I would give it a try as he is such a good writer.

In money saving news I am still spending too much money on food because I'm not meal planning properly, and end up popping to the shop before dinner 🙄. I'll try to actually sort that out this week. My homework for the weekend is a proper mealplan for the week based on what I have on already. Then hopefully I won't need anything except milk.

I'm out with friends this evening to see some sort of Halloween light trail, so that should be nice. I have bread in the bread maker currently, and will have cheese and bean on toast before I go out for an early supper. It'll be a 2 hour drive back in the dark and I am not the most confident night driver, but there is no rain or fog forecast and I think the flooding has all gone, so fingers crossed it'll be fine.

I woke up a bit grumpy and decided to try and work it off, so the downstairs has been hoovered, kitchen cleaned, washing put away and bedrooms generally tidied, and then I watched an episode of All Creatures Great and Small. I am no longer grumpy so something must have worked 🤣.

Just about to take silly dog a walk. Hope everyone's week is going well 😊

themadvix

Will be interested to hear what you think of the new Rebanks book - I really like English Pastoral, but this one does sound different.

Makingabobor2

ACG&S will always cheer you up. 

Elisheba

Morning, frugal friends,

Pay day tomorrow, which will be nice!  The last couple of days of the month my bank account becomes overdrawn which is never nice to look at, so it will be good to fill it back up again!  This is because I still haven't paid off my overdraft in full, I just make sure most of the bills come out at the end of the month so I'm not using it most of the time and therefore it only cost me a couple of pounds a month.  Because I manage it this way it is the least expensive debt, so it is last on the list of paying off, and I still have a few thousand on credit cards getting paid off first.  I don't like it though and I'll be glad tomorrow when i no longer have to look at negative figures.

The pay deal for 24/25 has been accepted by the Unions so I'll see it at the end of December. I cannot work out how much it will be in my pay packet though, as it puts me in a higher pension band so that will need to come off it and be back dated to April, and student loan and tax will increase in line with the increase, and as Nat Ins went down in April I can't do a percentage comparison between last March and now in terms of pre salary outgoings.  So I think I might be around £30-50 a month more than current but I don't know.  Lets hope it will be a happy surprise at the end of December! As things stand I don't need it for anything in particular (touch wood) so I can fire it toward the remaining debt.

Spending wise, I treated myself yesterday to the £4.99 Netflix monthly subscription, so I can catch up on a few series on there over winter.  My Mum also sent me a link to a competition to win a house about 10 miles from me.  You need to buy tickets for it, and its a ridiculous spend but it would be so brilliant and convenient for me that I entered it (and so did my Mum).  So watch this space in just over 2 weeks  .  

I have home made veg soup and hm wholemeal bread for dinner tonight (and probably tomorrow night as well).  Then I'll make some pizza dough for Friday (with white bread flour as I still have some I need to use up, and I don't have any wholemeal left).  It'll just be cheese, onions and olives on the pizza as that's all I have in but it should be tasty. As a matter of urgency I need to do a food plan for November and organise a supermarket delivery, so that is on my To Do for tonight probably.  I absolutely need to tackle my overspending on food this coming month.  I don't know if I need to up my budget or just plan better, and I won't know until I do a month of properly planned meals to see.  So target for November is a month of fully planned meals, and I'll see where to go from there,

It looks quite sunny outside today so my dog walk later on will be nice.  I haven't had the heating on for weeks as it has been so mild, and an oodie means I am warm enough without the heating or the wood stove.  So no doubt that is saving me lots of money in the longer term, although no doubt it will get colder at some point.  

I had the most odd situation with the sea creature energy company the other day, in that I got an email with a bill covering the last 6 months for an account I closed in 2020, for a house I haven't lived in for a year!  Thankfully one phone call seems to have resolved the matter.  I imagine it is some sort of mix up with new tenants in my old house.  I was tempted to ask for another £30 good will gesture, but as the old account is under a different email address and is a completely separate account to my new one I thought that might confuse things even more!  Its a good thing I do go through my emails though, otherwise I might have missed it and ended up with debt collectors and all sorts involved!

I hope everyone is doing well.  I need to go through diaries and catch up on everything soon.  I have let it slide a bit recently and I do find reading other peoples sorting outs of money and life very motivating.  

foxgloves

Nice to hear from you, @Elisheba. You seem to enjoy a life of simple pleasures - much like myself & I enjoy reading about your lifestyle. How odd about the Celphalopod bill. It does sound as though the new occupants may not have submitted a moving-in meter reading or a similar silly problem. Glad you have got it sorted out. I must say that on the rare occasion I've had a problem with them, they have sorted it out without any drama, & I had a named person too, which always helps when sorting out a utilities problem.
I really like home made soup & freshly baked wholemeal bread. All our freezer soups are tomato-based atm as we had such a glut of the fiends, but I am fancying some leek & potato, so must put leeks on the shopping list so I can make some.
F