Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

Baileys_Babe

I don't think the boot thing is a bloke thing more of a Mr F thing. I hope he tried them on yesterday evening so they can either be returned or the money transferred 🤞

foxgloves

@Baileys_Babe....err, that would be a 'no', but apparently he is trying them on later today. Hmmm.
F

scandimore

Hi Foxgloves, thank you for typing out that vegetable curry recipe - we tried it this week and really enjoyed it, quite a different flavour than the type I usually make which are quite garlic heavy! Might do it again next week.

I've made tomato and chilli jam before with a glut of tomatoes, which was delicious! 

Re: the blackberry stain, did you use the sodium percarbonate? Find it really good for stains fizzed in some hot water, then adding cold water and soaking the offending item. I've seen a coke stain disappear before my very eyes! 

foxgloves

@scandimore - Glad you enjoyed it. We did too & I also intend to make it again.  Re the blackberry compote explosion....no, he swore copiously, dashed into the kitchen while simultaneously shedding his jeans & tee-shirt, rubbed some neat washing-up liquid into them & then put them straight into the washing machine with our usual detergent. Thankfully, it came out in just the one wash. I am intending to try the sodium percarbonate (or 'green bleach' as it is sold as in our Eco-refill shop) on an annoying little stair carpet spillage so it will be interesting to see if it will fizz out old stains. 
F 

foxgloves

Hello Friday Diary Friends,
Quite a useful day on the whole, but it has been quite random in terms of tasks done, as we are starting to gear up for our mini-break & the prep which that entails. Anyway, I am able to put up some budget-helping stuff as follows:
*Town first thing to drop off 2 big charity bags & purchase a couple of items. Had coffee & breakfast before we went to save ourselves from coffee shop temptation.
*And a little bonus pour moi! Mr F needed new hair clippers & the set he liked had an offer £10 extra Advantage Card points. Anyway, he got them to the till & his app just wouldn't load & there were other customers waiting, so I whipped out my old plastic card & availed myself of his points, lol. 
*Did a couple of loads of laundry to make use of such good pegging-out weather.
*Discussed how to make best use of tomorrow's free electricity hour with the Cephalopods & decided that we will charge everything between 1 & 2pm, I will do the ironing & a good hair straighten instead of today as intended. there may well be other stuff, but we'll see how we go.
*Did a home hair colour as couldn't stand my roots any longer - dye kits have been creeping up in price but still only about £6.50 so much cheaper than what I used to pay for a salon colour back in the day.
*Did my mid-month budget check-in. Everything looks to be on track, but I was £13-06 under what I thought I should have. I know this isn't a lot, but I did have a quick look through to check I hadn't made an error with my calculations. No error found, so my best guess is that it will be a minor transaction I overlooked during the twilight zone, which is how I think of the 3 days between pay-day & the last day of the month. It may come to light on my next Big Budget Day when I reconcile this month's receipts but if not, it isn't enough to worry about (she says having wasted an entire paragraph on it!)
*Mr F DID try on his new hiking boots today & absolutely loves them. They are so stompy & make him about 4cm taller, so I look even more of a short*rse! Anyway, now I know they are not being returned, I transferred the funds from our Clothes Pot & paid them off the CC.
*Thankfully saved 40 miles of petrol & an afternoon. The tyre pressure light came on in our car last night & having checked the pressures, Mr F could find absolutely nothing wrong. He took them to a garage pressure gauge this morning & checked them again. Pressure in all 4 of them was smack on. He added a little bit of air given that we will have a bit of a load on for campsite trip & that was sufficient to get the light to shut up & go off. It is a bit of a design fault on our model of car, apparently. It comes on for no reason & although the mechanics at the dealership are happy to re-set it on a drop-in basis, it is a 40-mile round trip. Hopefully sorted now.
*Today's garden pickings: Ummm, don't know, as it's not my cooking night, but Mr F has just set off with great purpose & a colander.
That is pretty much me done for the day job-wise. I do want to set up my swift & wind a skein of scrummy birthday yarn (with sparkles!) into a ball ready for mini-break knitting, which will be a nice new pair of socks for me. I've discovered that the new ankle boots I bought last weekend are a little shorter than the knackered ones they replaced, so they will show off a little of my many pairs of funky hand knitted socks. Sometimes it's the small things.......
Right, time to see if the laundry is dry. If it only needs an hour of heated airer, I will set it up, but not switch it on until tomorrow's Free Energy hour.
Enjoy your Friday nights, m'dears.
F x

PennysIntoPounds

Oh you scoundrel! I can just see the black and white film noir now; The Great Advantage Card Points Robbery, in which the notorious money saver Madame Foxgloves pounces and swipes when her victim is vulnerable due to queue tutting, in her cunning disguise as someone four centimetres shorter 

badmemory

That tyre pressure thing is a pain.  Mine does it when its cold & then I bomb up the motorway & of course the tyres get hot.  You know there is nothing wrong & never has been but you still have to check, just in case.  At the moment mine is bleeping at me because a service is due.  No it isn't, I've hardly done any miles & it won't be a year until November.  Last week I caught myself telling it to shut up & go away.

ladyholly

When we had such a modern device as  tyre pressure warning lights Mr LH used to ignore them. They used to come on at the drop of a hat. We did, however, have a 12v pump so could pump them up if needed and he is very hot on checking tyres. Our present car doesnt have fancy things like that.

Baileys_Babe

In the free electricity hour could you use the oven? We usually try to, tomorrow will be a GF loaf. We usually also bake some potatoes, when you want them you can either heat them in the microwave or make them lovely and crispy by heating them through in the oven. Our last batch we used to make twice baked potatoes and we are using the flesh of tomorrow to make fish cakes and the skins at some point heated and served with a sour cream dip.

foxgloves

@Baileys_Babe - No, good idea but not possible for us as we have a gas oven & have never owned a microwave. All our primary heating also gas. We will be doing what we can though.
F