Dusty's Frugal Fortnights Return!

dustydigger

Fortunately Mr Dusty did enjoy his hybrid sort of curry/chilli meal,and will have the rest for supper.

Today is end of my Frugal Fortnight #1. Most of my outgoings are online,but £133  is allocated to the HBB(Home Budget Box) at the beginning of the fortnight for any cash spending,and anything left is for savings funds. This fortnight Mr D,who does any shopping for fish meat lightbulbs or whatever lost his bus pass and for about 6 days didnt go to the town ,and even since he hasnt gone much. So he only used £20 from the box,and I used £10 going halves on a takeaway,and £2.50 at b&m buying 2 frozen chicken curries whose sauce Mr D likes. I make chinese curry pasties as a quick supper meal occasionally. So I had a fantastic £100 to go to saving this fortnight.I'll explain how I allocate such savings in another post sometime.

Its not like the old days when I did Frugal Fortnights back in 2018. Then I did most of my shopping physically. I knew what I wanted at Aldi's, Heron's,the fishmonger's,the fruitshop,the bakery. I had a shop from Asd@ to deliver all the heavy tinned stuff,etc once a fortnight.

Because of covid and my health issues I now do a weekly shop at Asd@,and get more things there that Mr D used to get several days a week - till Tesc* closed down.I am hoping as my health improves at least a little I can get out to Ald! now and again. Unfortunately the bakery I used to get my guilty pleasure,a Devonshire Split,has closed down. As has the fishmonger....sigh.....

Very pleased with saving £100 this fortnight. Mr Dusty should lose his bus pass more often!

dustydigger

Decluttering. I really need to get back into this. When I felt my house was neat,tidy,with a place for everything,and little of my stuff annoying me (Mr Dusty's clutter is a whole other subject,which we will ignore ),it is such a good mental place to be.

But I have so much in so many categories its really difficult to settle on any one.But I've decided to do paper and photographs first. Could take an awful long time. I took all my photos from all my albums years ago intending to rearrange them,and then got too ill to summon up the patience and energy required. As for paperwork,I have masses of family history records that have just got so messy and almost impossible to manage. I quail everytime I think of attempting it.

This May I have slowly been sorting out and rearranging my kichen drawers. I only have the junk drawers left to do,before attacking the cupboards. Ruthless chucking out is necessary there,better leave them to June. I'm sure you noticed how I have already started to add too many areas of decluttering. I wont complete any of them if I start with too many!

So the last kitchen drawers and the photos first. Sorted!

dustydigger

New Frugal Fortnight starts today.

Budget for 30th May to 12th June

Income: £78  pension ,£200 to bank from our Pension Credit,£123 cash to HBB (Home Budget Box) .

Total income -£401.

All bills paid online as follows(rounded up)

Charity DDs - £14

Scottish Power -  £107

Broadband/phone -  £38

Kindle Unlimited - £8

Asd@ monthly delivery pass £6

total bills...........£167

Asd@ food deliveries  budget £160

total online expenditure - £327.

That would leave only £74  cash for HBB,so we add money from my CA

(bills always top heavy first week of the month,there is always plenty leftover online from the other fortnight which has a lot less bills,less than £70 )

 

DuranGirl

"Mr Dusty's clutter is a whole other subject"...  I've got one of those as well! I'm hoping to lead by example... 

annieb64

I've tried leading by example when it comes to OH's clutter. It doesn't work!

dustydigger

.Cold miserable morning.10C .We have a pub across the road,with a large grassed area in front of us. They are putting up a marquee.For the Jubilee,I presume. Lots of rain today and tomorrow,but hopefully clear Thursday. ,some rain Friday.

I wont be going out. All those thousands of people and not a mask in sight? Nope,not for me. I'll watch whatever they do across the road. Could even be a bouncy castle. Wow,the excitement

dustydigger

End of May,the first month of trying to cut spending. I am now doing almost all my shopping at Asd@,a weekly slot so that I dont run out of things ,so that Mr Dusty doesnt spend so much out of the HBB. Only £23 used this last fortnighwhen he had bus pass issues. Already back to normal though.yesterday when he went for our pensions he bought two plantains £2, a  bunch of bananas £2,grapes £2.50,a newspaper. So my HBB for this period £8 down before I even started. Then there were 5 tuesdays this month,so 5 deliveries. Asd@spends March were £291.84,April were £270.24 ,first 4 spends in May came to £264.03,but add on today's £63.59 and its £327.62.

I will be adding to that today when I go to see the nurse for my HbA1c results.I like Farmf**ds frozen fruit,£5 for 3 bags,which I use with my yoghurt breakfasts.Also want some of Mr Ds frozen chicken curries,I make little pasties as a quick supper meal. Only £1.25 I can make 4 little round little pies for that,two meals. Only cheap meal for Mr Dusty,who mostly eats lamb,rump steak,salmon,all very pricey

 Not looking forward to the A1c results,could mean at best going onto medications,at worst insulin injections. The thing is when you have a plethora of possible symptoms from diabetes,underactive thyroid.arthritis AND pernicious anaemia all in competition everyday to it can be hard to recognize which illness is causing your particular symptoms! I never really felt many diabetes symptoms per se,but if its true my sugar is at 66,when in 2019 after hard work to go into remission it was 37,and even 2020 it was 50,(full diabetes is 48 and above) thats very high. We'll see...........

Will be humping a bag of frozen groceries when I go to my 4.55 pm appointment. Good luck with the blood pressure,its going to be sky high! She is so not going to be pleased with me

dustydigger

Well I had terrible news at the docs. They were right about ''abnormal'' results. 2 years ago I was at level 50,and last year it was 63,. Now it is a massive incredible 103. Such sudden changes are often indicative of problems

 But the worse result that freaked out the surgery was the result of the CA19-9, Below 37 is normal,but the test is often a marker of pancreatic cancer. My result is a whopping 73. Dont want to talk about it,google C19-9if you want to see more.I've been put on a special quick track for a hospital appointment for blood tests and a body scan. probably within a week. Could be cancer,on the other hand liver problems are often accompanied by high CA19-9 markers,and lots of other things too. For now I am just going to assume its one of those things.

I have only told Mr D so far that I need blood tests,and he's used to that. Didnt mention the hospital either. Need to digest the situation first on what to say - and then root out my hospital bag. Its been 6  years since I needed it! / Now I am racking my brains about cleaning and decluttering the house asap!

 Serves me right for lolling about for months

Oh and surprise surprise I start metformin tomorrow morning. Complicated regime .They drasticaly need to reduce the sugar level.Looks like I have to be really really low carb and plant based these next few weeks.Any little bit to reduce the sugar.

One little good thing is that my anaemia has improved. The B12 regime is finally working.. I am actually feeling better in myself,am improving my walking,and general activity. Less lethargy and brain fog most definitely. And now this!....sigh......

OK must go to bed now. Havent set up my threads for a new reading month,will have to do them very early. Good thing most of the members are Americans,they will still be snoozing tomorrow morning,being 5-7 hours behind us.

I might share the reading challenges I am taking on in June. May have to cut down my TBR for June,wont be so much time for reading. We'll see

dustydigger

Oops,dont know what I did to make the post above so long. And no idea whatsover how to put it right.. So apologies!

Bluegreen143

@dustydigger sorry the news from the doctor wasn’t good, got everything crossed that your next tests don’t come back with anything bad. Hopefully the drugs & diet will mean your blood sugar cokes right down.