Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

Suffolk_lass

Speaking of postage, don't forget to buy ahead before they go up again. I have plenty of first class, but hardly any second class stamps so off to the post office near our holiday house this morning to top up some large letter stamps, enough for Christmas.

Back home late Sunday but popping in to see Mum tomorrow enroute home - it's her birthday today - 94!

foxgloves

@Moorviews - What a good idea. I will in future be a lemon-sniffer! The blue furry ones do have a very specific odour & the beginnings of this are also detectable on cutting one open & finding a slight discolouration in the centre. 
@EssexHebridean - Thanks, I may go that route, but as the email has just bounced back to me as 'undeliverable', my first step will be investigating whether there is a subtle change in the email address I have stored for them.
@PennysIntoPounds - Well Ash was asleep but Soot was busy with a dragonfly he'd brought in. He lost interest in it as soon as I appeared so I had to do a mercy killing, which made me very sad. It was a magnificent beast - green & big. 
F

foxgloves

@Sun_Addict - Yes, I only have the BBC Healthy Slow Cooker one but have made some nice things from it. We love the big batch bolognese & the gigantes plakis. The smoky beef stew thingy with butterbeans is also nice.
@Suffolk_lass - Thanks for the reminder about 1st class stamp prices increasing imminently. I had forgotten. I've added some to tomorrow's town list while I'm at the post office.
F

foxgloves

Hello Money Savers,
Busy but useful day here at Foxgloves Manor. Glorious weather - warm & sunny but with that little bite of autumn on the breeze. Today's budget helping positives:
*Cleaned the whole house using minimal products & microfibre cloths.
*Stripped & changed bed linen. Straight into the washer to blag a free line-drying day while I still can.
"Added more bits to tomorrow's town list to make the most of the petrol, parking & time.
*Today's garden pickings: 1 marrow, 1 courgette, 1 tromboncino, 6 pears, the final chillies of the year, blackberries.
*Couple of useful hours in the greenhouse - cleared bed, pruned grapevine then top-dressed with worm compost, watered September sown seedlings (rocket & coriander), took down the spent chilli plants & the used compost from their pots was added to flower borders.
*Additional free fitness going around with big trug & the grabber doing 'speed soggy pear-clearing'. Who knew that was a fitness activity? It is now! Red admiral butterflies & honey bees still all over the mushy windfalls, so I make sure I leave a few, but they do need clearing every so often. Trodden-in mushy brown pears are not a good mix for pale coloured wool rugs!
*Finished the research I started yesterday into T-shirts for festive gifts.
*Did a couple more surveys. Am waiting for over £9 of payments. Hope they arrive by the end of tomorrow (cash-out day).
*Finished toe of current sock & cast on its pair.
*Catch up with the FB foraging group I'm on - will do that later as it's quite relaxing looking at people's pics & kicking in a plant ID or preserving idea now & again. There are some hardcore foragers on there, so it's a good way for me to upskill for free.
Well, it's Mr F's cooking night, so I think it's time for my boots to come off, book to come out & maybe a bit of a manicure too.
Enjoy your evenings m'dears,
F x

Sun_Addict

You sound more like yourself so hopefully you’re feeling much better now 🙂 I am £1.35 away from the £25 cash out for Opinium and on £30 for PA with £5 awaiting approval. 

foxgloves

@Sun_Addict - I am feeling much better thanks, although the stitches are uncomfortable & I'm really hoping they can be removed next week when I see the dentist. The information sheet I was given says they need to stay in for 2 weeks & I'll be a day or two short of that when I go. 
Enjoy your nice curry & prosecco. 
F

2Scratters

Well that's another donated (from parents house) lipstick used up, using a lip brush once it reaches the holder there is another half of lipstick sat in there. Perfect timing as was a "summer" colour and have now selected another one - this has a brown autumn theme. Haa here's me so on trend. 
I have had a bit of an awakening of food and its contents and the way it is marketed to us. 40 years ago 1 in 6 would be likely to contract a cancer and now it is 1 in 2 . I am on a journey of checking about hidden sugar in food and how we are being deceived. I am not dictating anything at all but will let you know how I get on especially with my digestive system and its well being. (if that's OK?)
Hopefully it will get me back in the kitchen and stop wasting food more. 

The resourcefulness of using up what we already have in (and on top of cupboards) really does help with reductions in spending. Conscious shopping is still a strange thing to observe in yourself when you hold back to have  thought process/double check what is already at home. Yes I do go with a list but sometimes you see something and need to double think about it. I do go in different shops as some sell what others don't and I don't want to get caught out.

The other day I purchased the 2kg bags of sugar from Morries. It is my intention to blend it a bit more into castor sugar. If it goes too far, icing sugar will be fine too. Keeps my storage down and costs too as the price difference is crazy. 

Glad you are sounding more hooman and upbeat @foxglvoes.

Have a good weekend all

2 Scratters xx

badmemory

What worries me more than added sugar are the chemicals that they slip in to make food taste right.  I have been eating far too many ready meals recently & need to get back to cooking from scratch, I am definitely feeling the difference.

cuddlymarm

Hi guys
i hope you don’t mind me joining in. I’ve beeb AWOL from the forum for a while.
I was diagnosed with cancer in May, but now it’s been removed and I don’t need chemo so it’s time to concentrate on getting well. To make matters worse OH is now in hospital and will be off work when he’s allowed home. ( we’ve both gone through life with very little illness but now in our 60s it’s catching up it seems.
So both of us will eventually go down to SSP and though we’ll manage money is definitely going to be tight with winter coming and Christmas coming too.
I always keep plenty of food in but can’t cook anything that takes too much work as I run out of steam very quickly and need regular rest. 

So I’m another one who needs to start with more cooking from scratch when I can, eating much less processed food and also keeping costs down. Also I’m planning on looking for anything I need in CSs , stocking fillers etc. So far I’ve managed to pick up a pair of nearly new boots on Vinted for a fraction of the price of new and soon as I can go out more  making every penny stretch.

foxgloves

@2Scratters - Yes, I think the cancer rates have really increased over our lifetime, haven't they? My B-in-L & I were discussing this a couple of years ago when he needed radical cancer surgery. We were saying how we thought (neither of us has any medical background at all, I should add, it was just a thoughtful discussion based on what he had been through) that UPFs & dodgy plastics will probably be found to be a key factor at some point in the not too distant future. I think the ongoing gut microbiome research is very interesting. It is potentially interesting that the good gut microbes which feed on fruit & vegetable fibre produce additional nutrients for our bodies to use. I would imagine that our ancestors acquired a lot more of these than we do, as based on studies of tribes who still rely on bush meat, I gather the hunt is successful 1/3 of the time, so there must have been plenty of plant material consumed too. I have been following this line of research as a lay-person (more so since being diagnosed with an IBD) so it will be very interesting to see what it adds to the pool of knowledge about diet & disease.
@badmemory - Yes, I agree. I'm sure one of the reasons those ingredients lists are printed in such miniscule writing is so we can't see how many ingredients have gone into the item which one wouldn't find on any pantry shelf! I often think mass-produced biscuits are a good example of this. Biscuits are really just flour, butter, sugar, a drop of milk to bind plus whatever flavours/textures one requires but there can be a lot of 'mucked about with' cheapo ingredients in bought ones. I've even had flapjacks which have a great long ingredients list, when those really ARE just oats, sugar, syrup & butter. It's just profit margin, of course.......& that's the reason nothing is likely to happen re UPFs. We have to use our common sense as individuals.
@cuddlymarm - Hi & welcome to my diary. What a stressful time for you both. Good idea about cooking more from scratch to get those nutrients. Do you have a slow cooker? I was just thinking that if you could get a recipe into that at 10a.m, before you are exhausted from your day, it could simmer away & be ready to serve up at about 6pm. I didn't know anything about slow cookers when I bought mine years ago, but borrowed a pile of cookbooks from the library so I could find the most useful titles before buying a couple. My other suggestion would be for you to make a double quantity of favourite meals when you are feeling well, so that on a night when you are too tired to cook, you'd have these home cooked ready meals waiting in the freezer.
There are so many money saving ideas on these diaries to help you cut back, hopefully without feeling too deprived. Agree it's well worth looking in charity shops. This morning I found the EXACT book I have just paid full price for as a gift for my best friend's birthday. Same edition & everything & in fantastic condition.....but £1.99 instead of £8.99! Grrrr, I will remember to look in our charity bookshop next time before ordering as they do have a great selection.
F