Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

scandimore

Interested in the cat litter prices actually foxgloves. Ours are mostly indoor since they're old and will use the litter tray (or sometimes a quiet area of the house of their choosing if they get caught short  
The litter we get is £16 a bag for 10L but it's clumping which works best for us. Not exactly an excellent price though  
Expensive furry royals.

Makingabobor2

Another good day for you by the sound of it. Wish my Dh would offer to clean the bathroom and vac...lol. 

themadvix

scandimore said:

Interested in the cat litter prices actually foxgloves. Ours are mostly indoor since they're old and will use the litter tray (or sometimes a quiet area of the house of their choosing if they get caught short  
The litter we get is £16 a bag for 10L but it's clumping which works best for us. Not exactly an excellent price though  
Expensive furry royals.

Ah but it goes so much further than non-clumping, so I always think it’s better value for a regular litter tray. I think if it’s only occasionally used/out then non-clumping is probably fine, but a sack of clumping lasts ages. I’m afraid I buy it online though Foxgloves - a) because I don’t think the pet shops near me stock the particular variety I use and b) because it is expensive enough as it is. Great that your garden centre is the best price for you though.

PennysIntoPounds

Hurrah for towel whiff! (Now there's a sentence I didn't expect to find myself writing)

And fab that you can support a local business and get a very competitive deal.

You're definitely right in your cynicism, there's no way big companies haven't seen an opportunity to hike prices when they can blame other factors, and they know that people will go without to make sure their pets are okay. Absolute barstewards

Sun_Addict

I buy the wood pellet one from Mr M. It used to be a lot cheaper than it is now and I think the quality has gone down since the price went up. The older cat doesn’t use it but the young cat is very impatient and can’t wait 🙄

Suffolk_lass

We have an indoor (Stealth) cat and I buy the Morries 10kg sacks of clumping Fullers Earth for £2.19 a bag. Fullers Earth is also great if you have a damp area as it will suck up moisture, so it occasionally gets (well got) used in the motorhome if we were worried about water ingress. I don't know why some are sold in litres when they are solids, but the stuff we buy is in kg. I try to keep 2 spare as we use one every week, with refreshing and then topping up the tray.

Crazycatlady2

I find the cat talk interesting. We currently have 1 cat but have had Upto 3 at one point. I like the clumping stuff and buy it by the massive bag. Having said that I haven't bout any for years and we keep a tray in bathroom as cat doesn't like dog so hides up there 😀. He rarely uses it but has done a poop on the floor next to it twice in last few months so I'm glad it on lino not carpet 😱

Just realised our other cat passed away in 2020 so haven't bought any since before then which is longer than I thought tbh 

ladyholly

For anyone that has a car that gets damp inside cat litter does help to absorb it. Likewise if you get condensation on Windows a small box does absorb it to an extent.

foxgloves

Hello Saturday Savers,
Thanks for all your comments & contributions.
@PennysIntoPounds - Yes, there's defo been price-gouging, I feel sure of it. You only have to look at the profits of these big companies throughout the economic crisis to see that there has been no curtailment to them raking it in while others are choosing between beans on toast or putting the heating on.
@badmemory - Yes, I was surprised it was the cheapest price too, as it is only a little single-branch indie garden centre in our village, so doesn't have the bulk-buying power of the big chains.
@Makingabobor2 - When I worked full-time, we divided the housework between us 50:50, but when I took VR & we had a bit of a lifestyle change, I said it was only fair for me to do the bulk of it. It works well, actually, as it frees up our time together for ongoing projects/leisure. He does still offer to help on the days when he's home as neither of us believe in a gendered divide.

Re cat litter - it obviously does come down to individual preference depending on circumstances & fur friends! @Suffolk_lass & @ladyholly - Thanks for the tip about cat litter absorbing damp, which is useful to know. I am sure fuller's earth used to be used in DIY face masks back in the 1970s.

Anyway, I'd better get today's post on......
F x

foxgloves

So here are today's small budget-helping positives, some of which concern our city centre trip this morning - the smaller of our two almost equidistant city centres, where the parking is cheaper & the traffic usually not as bad.
*Chose only 3 hours of parking again & we did find that this was ample.
*Free coffee using loyalty stamps, so that reduced our Personal Spends outlay a little. These little bits of savings do add up, don't they?
*Good news on the biker jacket front. Am much more smiley about this than I was the other day when my much-loved old one had to depart for the great wardrobe in the sky. One of our reasons for a city centre visit this morning was so that I could try on the jacket I saw last time again & decide whether to buy it as a replacement. Decided to buy it but not from the Clothes Pot, as tbf, even though my old one wore out, I couldn't really justify this as a 'need' just at the moment, though it was definitely a 'Very Much Want', So I decided I would buy it from my Personal Spends, to which I had added £56-42 on the 29th - my February PA survey earnings. I knew that I didn't have any suitable Sparkles offers on my Sparkles card, so Mr F said he would just check his offers. I said I had never had any offers for menswear on mine, so I doubted very much he would have any womenswear offers. Au contraire, as he had a 15% off womenswear offer on his app, so at the till, the price to pay was £58-65, just £2.23 more than my survey earnings! Well, I decided that was supposed to happen & was so pleased to come home with a new jacket. I like them because they go over dresses & chunky boots just as well as they go over jeans. 
*A big saving for Mr F's Personal Spends, as he didn't buy anything! He was hoping for a reduction on a film he wants to buy but it was still priced at what he considered to be 'ridiculously high for a single blu-ray' so he left it in the shop. I knew he was planning to swing around via the supermarket to pick up a few more bottles of a very nice perry they have recently had on sale at 2 bottles for £3. .........which brings me onto another saving for Mr F's Spends.......
*.....because when we got there, they had sold out! Don't feel too sorry for him, as he did get some nice beer instead, but he was proper miffed that (& I quote,,,) "the usual gannets have been in sweeping all the offers into their trolleys & leaving nothing for the rest of us". I pointed out that if he had arrived to find 4 bottles on the shelf, he'd have bought them all, & he agreed he would!
*Entered a competition.
*Did 1 survey.
Tonight, we are ordering our planned & budgeted for pizza and intend to finish watching a Norwegian crime series. I also intend to have a look at a gardening book I borrowed from the library last week. It's a new one -  "The Money Saving Gardener" by Anya Lautenbach. I already salvage loads of free stuff to use in the garden, make compost, have a wormery, save seed, divide up plants for new ones, etc, etc, so although I will defo read about all of those, I am really interested in whether there are any other new ideas I can try. I will have a read & report back - gardening really is one of those areas where knowledge & skills can replace a significant amount of spend, so I am always keen to learn something new.
Oh....& will just add, in case anyone is feeling too sorry for Mr F & the lack of bargainaceous cider....he did suddenly remember he had his coffee cup in the car, so ran back to fetch it so that he did at least secure a free drink!
Have a lovely weekend, all.
Love F x