Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

Hi Tuesday Diary Readers,
Bet you can't guess what weather we've had today. Yep, rain! Pretty much all day. No gardening for me today, except for standing my sown later-then-usual squashes & courgettes outside for a drink. Indoor tasks for me, & indoor sulking for the cats. Soot has been in the conservatory, obviously trying at least to rock a bit of a summer vibe. Ash took himself off to his upstairs igloo bed & only ventured forth for lunchtime biscuits. Ah well, a few budget-friendly bits & pieces:
*A no-spend day. I don't have the wheels in the week as Mr F can't get to work on public transport, & I couldn't get enthusiastic about going out in the rain.
*Did belated Monday morning budget updates.
*Did a couple of surveys. May's P/A earnings have broken my monthly target of £40, as currently at £50-07 with some payments (& hopefully a few more surveys) still to come before my cash-out day on 31st.
*Two new recipes being tried today - neither of them expensive to make. First, a pinto bean chilli which is simmering in the slow cooker & second, a green chilli cheese cornbread which is from the vegetarian version of that batch cook book which I think was mentioned on here some months ago (unless I imagined it!) Borrowed it from the library - I don't buy any cook books these days unless I've borrowed them from the library first to check that there are plenty of recipes I'd actually make......have had to be tough on my cookbook habit as I do have plenty. Anyway, I am hoping both will be nice. Have made enough for tomorrow too, as I do like 'Cook once, eat twice'.
*Baked bread.
*Made tomorrow's packed lunch & breakfast.
*Finished B-i-L's Christmas present socks & cast on the next pair for the presents bag, which will be for my best friend. Self-patterning yarn bargain from when our local charity bookshop had a huge basket of donated sock yarn to sell. I am not sure yet how the pattern/colours will knit up, but they are colourful & I think she will like them as she does love wearing bright colours.
Not money saving: Succumbing to the heated airer. Did the rest of this week's laundry & thought it would get a couple of hours blowing about outside before the rain, but it only managed 30 mins. Never mind, it is pretty much dry now, as not that much, & was able to spread it out.
Not intending to do anything other than watch TV, catch up with Mr F & knit tonight. I'd love to be able to get outside to crack on with all my garden jobs tomorrow, but I'm sure it will be rainy again, & Thursday looks the same, but with a lightning symbol also in the mix. Oh joy, cats (& me!) on wet playtime again!
F x

Makingabobor2

Its just dreadful weather isn't it? Next week looking better though. A friend told me he'd read we are getting 30c temperatures in June...will believe it when I see it...lol

KajiKita

I so feel your pain on the Hawkeed. 😢 My veggie patch is INFESTED with bindweed …. For the last four years the veggie patch has become swamped … This year, we are trying really hard to at least keep beating it back - even Mr KK is helping this year (Hero! ❤️). I might not manage everything else this year, but if we could at least manage to keep it beaten back, we would be hugely winning! 😉

Sympathies on the rain ‘stopping play’. Hope it clears swiftly ….

KK

PennysIntoPounds

Horribly rainy down here too. Was hoping to get more steps and do more productive dropping things off to various places to help with our move but, and I like to think I'm a reasonably hardy soul, every time we looked out the window it was torrentials. I'm not feeling soaked all day for things that can be done another day even if it is more of a rush. Also probably more healthy and more mse as for every 15 minutes you get rained on you have to have a few biscuits. I don't make the rules 😁

foxgloves

Oh my life, it's not raining!! Or should that be it's not raining YET? Whichever it turns out to be, I am heading out imminently to crack on with a few tasks. Nothing money saving about losing plants because they have sat around in little modules for too long.
On with the old boots, hope to be back posting up a decent list of budget-helping achievements later.
F x

Makingabobor2

We've had a couple of small showers here this morning, but managed to get out and back without getting wet. Hope you got your garden tasks done. 

foxgloves

@KajiKita - Yes, & it's always the yellow hawkweed, which seems to be the worst 'spreader' which invades our garden, never the more unusual orangey 'Fox & cubs' variety. We also have a big problem with bindweed, which we put down to a neighbouring property never having been owned by a gardener. It all spreads from under that side. We did manage to eradicate bindweed from one side of our veggie plot, simply by absolute zero tolerance - digging out every piece of root & getting onto it as soon as we spotted the tell tale signs of leaves popping through. Unfortunately 2 of my big ornamental borders are rammed with the wretched stuff. It is much more difficult to get at there, because unlike the veg bed, which are all empty for at least part of each year, the flower borders are packed with plants & the damned bindweed gets in with the roots of stuff I very much want to keep. However, as soon as I have caught up with all the tasks which have been delayed by rain, I intend to implement a bindweed/hawkweed blitz .....& then they'll be sorry! I shall certainly be making optimum use of our paid-for council garden waste wheelie!

@Makingabobor2 - Yes, you were right. Much better today. No rain expected here until later, so I have got some useful outdoor stuff done at last.
F

foxgloves

Hello Wednesday Pence-Wranglers,
Honestly, the first thing I do on rising atm, while drinking my mug of ginger tea, is check the weather forecast. Am I turning into my Dad? Obviously as a keen gardener, I do like & appreciate the importance of rain, but I think we are all ready for it to be a little less frequent to enable us to get on with our food growing endeavours & actually enjoy some time sitting outside with a coffee. Anyway, a cloudy day today & not that warm, but so far it has been dry, so I have been able to do some catching up. Budget-friendly bits of my tasks today:
*Started writing a new library wishlist.
*Lamb bone simmering in the Crock-pot for stock. 
*Weeded 3 separate areas of garden border & planted out home grown cerinthe, cosmos & larkspur. Both the cerinthe & cosmos were grown from saved seed - v easy to harvest seed from these in case anyone is thinking of having a go at seed-saving. Calendula also an easy one. 
*Watered greenhouse veg, squashes, courgettes, pumpkins outside again hardening off. Think I will give them another night in the greenhouse, then they can stay outside until planting out time. Was annoyed to see that over the last 3 wet nights, we have lost 5 lettuces! OK, I know that 5 lettuce seeds is such a tiny amount of money as not to register anywhere on a budget, but I am thinking of it in terms of buying 5 frilly, organic lettuces & that quickly puts this mollusc munching in perspective at a £5+ loss. have also lost a few bedding plants, but I still have plenty to put in so can fill the gaps. Mr F has volunteered to join me on a torchlit snail hunt at some point soon & any naughty scoffers will be relocated to a prickly area of garden away from areas they can damage. Hopefully there will be a thrush somewhere grateful for an escargot banquet.
*Lined up the next garden task for tomorrow if there is a dry couple of hours - again, I want to get plants out of modules so they can spread their roots, rather than have them bolt & waste them.
*Also planted out free chrysanthemum which was a gift from my friend's garden. She says it flowers for ages & is great for cut flowers for the house, so I shall look forward to those for my flower bottle.
*Zero effort meal tonight, as both those recipes I tried last night were really nice & there is sufficient to feed us again tonight, plus a microwaveable mugful of the bean chilli for the freezer which will make a good packed lunch for Mr F at some point.
*Knitted another couple of cms of present bag socks while I was having my lunch break. 
Am looking forward to a hot bubble bath as have been bent in half in various garden borders all morning, so shall doubtless be a creaky old crone later!
F x

Makingabobor2

Don't describe yourself as an "old crone", I'm pretty sure you aren't as old as me, and I still like to think of myself as middle aged, wise and carefree. I try not to think about the creaking bones and aching muscles and just exercise to help them. Also save up my survey money for nice massages sometimes....really helps. 

badmemory

What I want to know is what happened to all the sci-fi theories that meant it would only rain between midnight & 6am.