Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

Hello Money Savers, Busy morning, but am having a much more relaxed afternoon. I've sorted all the clean laundry & ironed only what really needed it, then got onto the pickling job I began yesterday with brining the veg. That's all done & bottled - just need to label the jars. Latest monthly statement from the Cephalopods landed in my inbox this morning so have perused that. Haven't yet number-crunched the fine details for my chart but I can see that we have used £73 of energy, which on a DD of £120 has put another wodge of credit onto our account. Credit is now standing at £617. This is roughly the amount we had going into last winter. I was aiming to get it to £600 then request a DD reduction, but the Cephalopods pre-empted this by reducing it 3 months ago, so I have been deliberating the best course of action. I am minded to leave the credit balance in place, as with lower prices, I think we will be able to use a little more heating than we did last winter - not a lot, as we will keep it off overnight apart from frost settings - but maybe go back to 19 degrees from 5-10pm which is what we did before the ridiculous price rises. We definitely won't be going mad, that's for sure, as it is also greener to cut back on gas use, so I think I will monitor that credit balance & if it is looking chunky at the end of March 2024, I will ask for a refund or another DD reduction. 
I've done a very few surveys today too. My August PA earnings are at £25-13 with a few more days to go. I don't think I will be finding many surveys over BH weekend, but will keep an eye on them when I remember as it is useful extra money for adding to my Personal Spends.
I've also done chicken s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g activities this morning. Mr F made roast Indian spiced chicken on Sunday (Madhur Jaffrey's Curry Bible, which is a good one to pick up at the library if you like spicy food & haven't got it yourself) so it has already done 2 portions. I have divvied up the leftovers to provide cold spiced chicken with new potatoes & salad tonight with some home made chutney, & tomorrow's meal which will be stir-fried spicy chicken with vegetable served in pittas with wokked garlic courgettes on the side......because seriously, they are taking over & will soon be living in our house while we are relegated to the garden shed! Also enough to mix with a bit of mayo to make a nice chunky sarnie for tomorrow's packed lunch.
I haven't done any garden pickings today. A fair bit ready for harvesting but I have decided to prioritise that job tomorrow when I will have more time to deal with it.
F x

foxgloves

@Makingabobor2 - You just need to be a member of their loyalty card scheme. Then you get a member's pack roughly monthly (I think) which contains various vouchers, sometimes competitions & newsy stuff. I am usually on the look out for the % off a minimum spend-type of voucher but have occasionally made good use of some of the others too. Back in Lockdown, I was looking to treat myself to an *insert expensive brand* stand mixer. When my vouchers arrived, there was one for £100 off the exact one I wanted, plus I was also able to use the % off voucher alongside it. Since then, I haven't needed any of the things for which they have sent very specific vouchers, but I always look at them  just in case because of striking lucky with the stand mixer. 
F x

badmemory

They are talking about expecting it to go up again in January.  Just in time for the highest usage period!

EssexHebridean

yes - I've combined the vouchers like that before too - very useful when it works like that! 

foxgloves

Hello Sunbeams,
Busy morning, now having a bit more of a relaxed afternoon, as really only need to help put the shopping away later & make dinner, which is a quick one. 
Today's small positive money saving wins:
*Was outside at 7.45am doing garden pickings: 3kg tomatoes, 1.4kg french beans, 2 courgettes (plants are slowing down now so I am hoping to get on top of the mountain in the veg basket), 200g chillies, blackberries & a bunch of basil.
*Did triage of the tomatoes & turned 1kg of them into soup. 7 portions for freezer - lovely autumn lunch with a slice of sourdough toast or bread roll warm from the oven.
*Prepped & froze 4 bags of beans.
*Last of Sunday's roast spicy chicken will be the protein content of tonight's meal. Will also be wokking plenty of courgettes as side-veg.
*Picked a week's worth of meals from the August masterplan & tweaked it to accommodate a friend coming over for a meal at the weekend.
*Wrote shopping list, having decided on BH baking.
*Mr F needs to call at Sainso's for petrol on his way home from work (he has a short day today) & said that he has a voucher for £4.50 off a £30 shop which can't be used online like he originally thought, only in store. We don't have a S store in our town so he said he will call into the branch in the town where he works & do the supermarket part of our shopping a day early. £4.50 off such a small minimum spend seemed like too good an offer to pass up, as he was going there for petrol anyway.
*Have done 3 surveys & I think I am successfully booked onto one for tomorrow afternoon which is paying £4.50 plus possibility of bonus. Hope so, as that will get me up above £30 & help my August PA earnings total.
Still to do:
*Re-watch Nonna Gina's tomato bottling video on YouTube as I can't find the notes I made last year. I will defo need to bottle some of our tomatoes as they are coming thick & fast now. 
*Do the foot shaping on current sock for the presents bag.
*Crochet some more squares for cat blanket.
I've been reading a book from the library  - "Atomic Habits" by James Clear. It's about using tiny changes to break bad habits & build good ones. Some of it is common sense, but I found quite a few bits which really resonated with me in terms of my past bad money habits. i.e Instant gratification usually winning out over delayed reward - choosing 'Present me' instead of 'Future me'. He writes, "The costs of your good habits are in the present, the costs of your bad habits are in the future". I had no sooner read this & I was back at that well-known department store cosmetic counter with the lovely bonus-time offers! Tackling my habitual succumbing to these alone would have built a good few hundred ££s in a savings account between the age of 30 & the dawning of the LBM. That's without all the other things I bought on impulse, running up my overdraft & endlessly maxing out the evil flexi-loan. I also found myself agreeing wholeheartedly with a paragraph in his conclusion, where he says, "Bad habits repeat themselves again & again not because you don't want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change". Well, in debt-busting or savings terms, that's the budget. In healthy eating/weight-loss terms, it's meal planning & not buying in unhealthy foods which will sabotage, And it struck me that this also applied to me not doing any writing. I organise my day, yet it never includes writing in any plan. I could begin a habit of including "Write from 8am to breakfast time at 10am". I want to finish my novel. I am most emphatically NOT finishing it, so the system is lacking because I do not build in any time for writing, so changing this is a small habit which I clearly need to adopt. Anyway, it is quite an interesting book to dip into, & overall, is kind of about small aggregate gains being able to effect significant results in whichever habits we want to break or to introduce.
Well, Soot has come to tell me that it is time I stopped chatting to you & dished out his afternoon treats, so I shall do that, then re-visit Nonna Gina & her tomatoes.
Love F x

Makingabobor2

Book sounds interesting, will have to look that one up.  

When you get courgettes, I notice you mention them being in a veg basket. Is it better to store them like that? I have always put mine in the fridge, but maybe that's why they don't last so long?  TBH, I always put courgettes, carrots, parsnip & Broccoli in the fridge?   Swede & Squash I tend to leave in a veggie bag in the cupboard.  Have I been doing it wrong all these years? 

starnac

This is interesting. Thanks for sharing. I have looked at that book time and time again after it being recommended by friends but I worry that it's all going to be fluff and "start your day at 5am to really turn your life around". Interesting to know it's not. Thank you

foxgloves

@Makingabobor2 - I am not sure there is a right or wrong way, just whatever works for us. Some kitchens are cooler than others including ours, as it is north facing & doesn't get the sun so mostly we just keep salad stuff in the fridge plus berries, etc. It also depends on how much space we have. If all the courgettes in our veggie basket (which are the big built-in pull-out wicker drawer kind) were to be moved to the fridge, we wouldn't be able to fit anything else in there, except maybe the milk, butter & eggs! And it seems to vary even with the same veg! I thought our carrots were keeping better if kept in the fridge, but this year, this doesn't seem to have been the case. A farming family matriarch told me that the best carrots for keeping are the ones sold fresh from the market with the soil still on them - "mucky carrots" & she is right. I don't know why, but whenever we have bought their mucky carrots, they have lasted a good bit longer & not gone soggy. I think the bags of washed ones might look more attractive to the consumer, but the introduction of dampness followed by plastic probably isn't a great mix for longevity. I do have a walk-in pantry as well, so often have an additional veg basket in there, as it is cooler.

@starnac - I saw the book mentioned somewhere & decided to borrow it from the library. I don't usually go for this sort of book as tend to be a bit cynical about pure common sense dressed up with a bit of jargon into a 300 page tome, but I thought I'd give this one a go because I was interested in the approach of making tiny changes. I like the idea that if I make a habit of writing just one paragraph a day, then I am a 'writer', if I play my piano daily, even just one piece, then I am a musician. And although it seemed obvious as soon as I'd read it, inserting a new good habit into an already established daily routine seems an easy win on the face of it. i.e "I have switched the coffee machine on, I will now do 5 mins of stretches while I wait for it to brew". Also little things like.....instead of procrastinating about going for a walk, use that wasted procrastination time to lace on your walking boots, then see how you feel about just a 10 mins walk. It is kind of a book about concentrating on very small things to make a difference & as a debt-buster (& now saver) I do understand the importance of small aggregate improvements.
F

Makingabobor2

I agree about washed carrots, I hate them and even worse that they are in plastic bags!!  Our kitchen does get warm, as sun streams through window from sunrise till late morning. Would love a huge walk in pantry. 

foxgloves

Well, I have refreshed my memory on the subject of tomato-bottling. I do remember that I used a combination of instructions last year when I had my first attempt, so it was annoying to have lost my notes. I think they must have been in my previous notebook & I bet I turned over 2 pages & thus missed transferring them to my current one. Never mind, I have re-written them & will make sure they are typed up properly this time & added to our big recipe file. I have been saving large mayonnaise jars with good 'button' lids so that it is easier to see they have sealed properly. The salad drawer at the bottom of the fridge is pretty full of tomatoes atm as I only used 1kg for the soup, & there are heaps more which will be ready for picking in a couple of days, so I will ask Mr F to give me a hand getting my jar crate out from the shed....I think this could involve impromptu meetings with humungous arachnids, so will defo not be lifting it out of storage myself!
I love this time of year. Having a veg plot means food metres instead of food miles, no chemicals, no plastic & good things stored to eat or gift over the coming months. I also like that it connects me with women back through the centuries, who have been growing patches of edible & healing plants and saving seeds throughout the mists of time. 
F x