Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

@Suffolk_lass - I hadn't realised that cerinthe is part of the borage family. So easy to grow from saved seed. I saw a packet of cerinthe seeds on sale for over £3 a few years back & it contained EIGHT SEEDS!! 

I had to smile about cats drinking people's bedside water. We had a cat years ago who would regularly do that & not just water, I'd find him slurping my elderflower cordial too, which can't have been good for him. Our cats are shut out of the bedroom at night time. If either of them did manage to get in & found my glass, it would almost certainly be Soot & as he is incapable of doing anything quietly, he would wake us up beforehand with all the loud meowing to announce his very important presence!

Right, can report a decent day on the budget-friendly front:
* A no-spend day.
*Baked the sourdough loaf I mixed up yesterday. 
*Defrosted a container for tomorrow's packed lunch & made up a porridge pot.
*Did meal plans for next week.
*Home Care Hour = A thorough cleaning of the fridge & a good wipe of everything before it was allowed back in. Not going to lie, I've been back to open it 3 times just to admire how fresh & shiny it looks inside!
*Scrubbed last year's plant labels in soapy water with a dash of vinegar ready for use. I don't find my recycled ones last for more than 1 season as they go rather bendy, but the bought ones, which I've been given by other people in the past get cleaned up every year to get as much use from them as possible before consigning them to landfill.
.......Rainy morning but then the sun came out, so fired up the coffee machine, filled my lidded beaker & headed out to the greenhouse.......
*More FREE PLANTS, yay!! This afternoon's task was sorting out the sweet-peas which I sowed back in October. It was nice plump seed I saved from last summer's plants so these are absolutely free plants. I composted two wimps & potted up all the others to give them more room. Then pinched them out (for sturdier shaped plants) & fed & watered. I usually manage to plant them out in April, depending on how cold the nights are - I saved some glass shelves from an old fridge & a bathroom cabinet which make good protection for them if it looks to get too cold, though they still have plenty of time to get bigger in the meantime. There are 21 plants in total so if none of them decide to turn up their toes, that should be sufficient for both obelisk-thingies. 
*Took advantage of an amazing offer from our local butcher & have ordered a pack to collect at the weekend. It consists of 4 chicken breasts, 1 whole chicken, 1 half-lamb shoulder, 1 topside beef joint, 1 gammon joint, 4 sirloin steaks, 6 lamb chops. 6 pork steaks & a boneless pork loin joint for £60. I thought it was too good an opportunity to miss, as we can fill the freezer with enough for many meals going forward into Spring.....(you know how far I can stretch a roast joint or a chicken). We still have plenty of fish left from our last order, so I shan't need to order a new box next time the Grimsby fish man is over our way, meaning that the one will pay for the other. I also have plenty of pulses in stock as I do cook quite a lot of meat-free meals too, so we should have plenty of variety. 
*Did a survey - February's PA earnings currently at £42-11 with another £4.50 to come. I will keep checking just in case I can squeeze a few more in before cashing out on the 28th & must remember that the £34 I earned last month is still sitting in the Pay of Pal, along with £10 cashed out from another Ips*s. The £34 is mine so will be added to my Personal Spends but the £10 along with everything I've earned from PA in February is pledged to the Savings Pots. 
My jobs are finished for the day. I have pork chilli in the slow cooker, making use of 225g leftover roast pork chunks I froze a while back. It is smelling nicely enticing & I shall only have rice to cook. A bubble bath & hair wash beckon AFTER I have done cat treats, otherwise Soot will keep coming in to meow at me, each meow an attempt to pierce the heart of a mean Meowmy who put her ablutions above his hungry tummy. Ash has already played his part by coming in from this morning's rain like a sodden spiky hedgehog & oh deep joy, drying himself on my tights!!
Cheers,
F x

ladyholly

I wish we had a butcher like yours. Come to think of it I wish we had a butcher.  A bargain deal indeed.

foxgloves

@ladyholly - Although 3 butchers have closed since we moved here, there are still a few in town. The one we use is the market butcher & he has very good deals. I think he can turn a profit because by selling at such good prices, he shifts a lot of stuff. And on top of this, he has a loyalty card, which when fully stamped, can be exchanged for £10 of free meat of the customer's choice. I think these consistently good prices will have helped a lot of local families during the crazy cost of living crisis food inflation. I wish you could access something similar.
F x

ladyholly

Our indoor market closed many years ago and when someone tried to start an outdoor one a couple of the local shops who have influence with the council complained. One of those has now closed and I believe there are plans to run one weekly starting in April although I will believe it when I see it. We do have one butcher in town that does deals but his meat is distincly iffy at times.

foxgloves

@ladyholly - Our local council tries really hard with the town market. It's a historic market town so has a lovely cobbled square. They boost the existing thrice-weekly market with weekend craft stalls, vintage/flea fair sellers, events, etc, but still attract endless moans that the market used to be much bigger & better with heaps more variety. I'm sure it did, but that was before supermarkets started selling cheap homewares & clothes, pound shops arrived en mass & that's without the vast online businesses determined to leave no source of retail income untapped. I often wonder how much stuff the local moaners buy from these. I intend to ask the next person who moans to me about it. 
F

foxgloves

Afternoon Sunbeams,
Yes, sun positively streaming through the windows of Foxgloves HQ, but no gardening session for me today, as it has been my Big Budget Day. I was feeling unusually trepidatious about this one for no reason other than knowing we have various expenses in March which I need to include. As always, once I'd got ensconced at my desk & hitting the hard number-crunching, I started to feel much more confident. I think that's invariably the way, actually, whether one's finances are looking good, bad or downright cataclysmic, it IS better to know. False worry on my part today, as everything has gone fine. I'll start with that for on today's list of money saving efforts:
*Big Budget Day. Reconciled February's budget with no nasty surprises. Updated a few figures on Spreadsheet 1 (Bills/DDs) & then set March's budget. One outstanding item to include was our lunch last week on dentist day & I remembered to budget for our annual supplies of compost/growbags which Mr F is intending to pick up this weekend, plus our annual car park pass for a local historic park we visit regularly for walk, picnic, wildlife spotting, Mr F's photography, etc. Even with these extras, I was able to pay into our regular saver, the car fund (we don't want to return to car finance having had a couple of cars without it), premium bonds plus £470 to the Savings Pots. The Holiday Pot received its usual £50 (according to my holiday payment schedule to ensure we can pay balances on time, the Appliances Replacement, Tech Replacement & House/Garden Pots received £100 each, with £111 to the Meow Fund (annual check-ups/boosters imminent) & the £8.99 no longer required for recently cancelled TV streaming subscription went, as intended to the Leisure & Entertainment Pot. Our Personal Spends spreadsheets are now operational for March, must to Mr F's delight as he has apparently got some or other box-set arriving, & our new Grocery Budget log-sheet is ready to go. I was able to budget separately for the butcher's meat pack which is better, as it means we won't be tipping into grocery budget over-spend at the end of next month. I'm simply replacing our next fish box order with a meat freezer stock-up instead. One credit card bill has been paid in full(petrol, parking & planned spending) & the other I've budgeted to pay in full on arrival (only 1 transaction - boring coffee machine filters, just in case anyone thought I'd been on a yarn-spree or a spendy trippette to the garden centre!). It is now YEARS since we incurred any interest on our credit cards. They now work for us, instead of costing us & we enjoy spending the loyalty vouchers. 
*Re-subscribed to the council's garden waste collection service. Wanted to do it in good time to ensure we don't end up missing the first collection of the new cycle, as it is a standard fixed year with no part years or extensions. It's only gone up £1 to £38, & we both think it's an excellent service.
*Cleared residual financial admin, esp lingering emails & had a big filing session.
*Have had PA tab open & have jumped onto suitable surveys when they've appeared. Will cash out tomorrow or Saturday. Mr F, who has even worse insomnia than usual atm, got up at Stupid O'Clock & managed to do a survey with 2 cats trying to sit on him simultaneously.
*Made tomorrow's packed lunch & breakfast.
*Wrote Week 1's grocery shopping list.
*Remembered to defrost prawns for making spicy prawn rice later, accompanying dhal in slow cooker smelling nicely fragrant.
*Home care hour not yet done but will include sorting out the bombsite kitchen & scrubbing sink, emptying bins, vacuuming downstairs & having a quick general tidy.
*A little more present knitting over my lunch hour while I watched the last episode of 'Unforgotten'.
Right, I must sign out now & crack on with the kitchen. I have an audiobook on the go so it won't feel too arduous.
Peace,
F xx

foxgloves

Bah! Didn't get the vacuuming done, but I'm sure that dust & cat fur isn't going to go anywhere overnight, so will do it tomorrow. Ready for food & some sofa time now.
F x

Blackcats

Good news is that dust and cat fur will be much easier to see in the bright spring sunshine tomorrow 😸.  I caught a glimpse of our shower screen in the sunshine last weekend - crikey I wasn't expecting that many smears and smudges.  At least the bright sun shining in just the right/wrong place meant it was easier to see what I was trying to clean.

ladyholly

Gosh you garden waste bin is very cheap compared with ours at £65.

Sun_Addict

Ours is £45 and they only collect March to December despite living in the same county!