Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

ladyholly

I have never heard of steeking which is surprising as my mother was a craft teacher and and my sister taught embroidery.  I did look it up and it looks very complicated for someone who has only ever knitted and finished one item and that was a 6 foot ribbed scarf for Mr LH. 

The craft gene missed me on the whole although I did make silly little things to sell at craft fairs like face cloth animals, fancy keyrings and such like and I made simple dresses for my dd when she was little mainly because she was tall and very slim and nothing ever fitted her.

foxgloves

Greetings Friday Frugalistas,
Very busy productive day. Budget-friendly stuff as follows:
*A no-spend day.
*Made a sourdough for baking tomorrow.
*Cleaned kitchen& bathroom, vacuumed living room, emptied bins.
*Put the jam I made yesterday away in the pantry.
Then transferred myself to the greenhouse:
*Planted up grow bags with aubergines (which are still sulking & are on 'final warning') & cucumbers. Also potted on squash, tromboncini & courgettes & made a start on the chillies. I always use a mixture of bagged & homemade compost at this stage to save on the bought stuff.
*Pinged my sis with a list of spare plants hoping she'd want a few to free up some greenhouse & coldframe & she said, "All of them, please!". Result! 
*Watered everything, including a sprinkle for the worm composter as the wigglers don't like overly hot conditions & I want to collect the lower tray of compost very soon.
And now, as it's Mr F's cooking night, I intend to do sweet b*gger all except eat some food, read my book & watch a bit of TV.
Oh...did I tell you about what I decided with my steps? Instead of setting a challenging daily total & getting annoyed at missing it, I decided instead to set a daily amount which I won't fall below. I set it at 5000 per day (I do quite a lot more than that on some days & a bit more even on low days) & today is my 15th day in a row of not falling below that 5000. I chose 5000 as a daily minimum because I've read, & also heard on a radio programme a while back, that anything below 5000 steps a day is classed as sedentary. I have very little interest in exercise, so simply 'refusing to be sedentary' seemed a usefully realistic goal for me as a minimum. Always nice to find I've done quite a lot more though.
F x

amber03

I’ve heard on the radio tonight that we may soon have a hosepipe ban in our area due to the weather. A farmer was saying he is losing all his crops as it’s so dry. Have been out watering tonight more to do with the money we pay for our water bills that have shot up so much. Did look into having a water meter but it was recommended staying on DD. I want to get my money’s worth out of them.xx

foxgloves

@ladyholly - There isn't much in the knitting line that I wouldn't at least try, but steeking sounds very scary. I'd have visions of cutting into my lovely just-finished piece of knitting & seeing it unravel before my eyes!

@amber03 - Yes, terribly dry here too (North East Mids). Can barely get a handfork in the ground. Had to use the hose to top up our little wildlife pond last night because the marginal water plants were getting beached. Would dearly love to have a good solid 2 or 3 days of rain.
F

foxgloves

Hello Saturday Savers,
Pleasantly productive morning mostly out in the sunshine:
*Almost a no-spend day. Newspaper fetched but that's on a subscription deal, so the only spend was Mr F putting the car through the carwash & fuel for a long drive tomorrow.
*Planted the last of the chilli babies into their final containers.
*Planted up 2 simple hanging baskets (both the same) - geranium 'Violet' & some brachyome which I grew from free seed. They will go up on the front courtyard wall when they are bigger.
*Planted up 2 other overwintered geraniums for a bit of colour in almost refurbed kitchen garden area. One is in a cylindrical old enamelled bread bin as I like to repurpose useful stuff.
*Sorted out plants for my sister, plus some mags as we are going to do a magazine swap when we meet up.
*Put BiL's birthday bag where we can't forget it. I've wrapped everything 6 weeks early to avoid postage costs.
*Changed bed linen & Mr F turned the mattress & helped me get a mattress cover on. It's quite hard to lift mattress corners with arthritic hands. Then 2 laundry loads to make use of fab free drying weather.
*Incorporated 3 use-it-up fridge items into my lunch - the last of some kefir & yoghurt & half an avocado.
*Mr F's cooking night. He's roasting a chicken & appears to have bought the biggest one in the shop.....I'm already eyeing it for 3 more meals, sandwiches & some stock. I crossed carrots off the shopping list, as suddenly remembered the two bagfuls I blanched & froze the other week when I realised they wouldn't get used in time.
I shall need to water the greenhouse & veg troughs, bedding plants, etc, later when it's cooled down, but that's it for jobs today so it's reading bench time with a nice cold drink.
F x

PennysIntoPounds

'Not sedentary' sounds like a perfect baseline, and one that is useful throughout all stages of life both physically and mentally

Happy new bedding, well done on the mattress turn- hopefully neither of you will be toppling into the other while it adjusts! 😁

Suffolk_lass

I need to get planting containers and two hanging baskets. I've got two really small metal "window" boxes that sit either side of the open porch wall too that had pansies, narcissi and crocus for the winter and spring, but desperately need a redo. I have six trailing geraniums (pelargoniums) and six each of red and white for tubs. I just need some blue to trail around them (usually lobelia) - I might look at brachyscome for a change, as I do like blues

foxgloves

@PennysIntoPounds - That's just what I thought & isn't it strange how a simple reframing has led to me feeling much more motivated? I don't decide to give up & sit on my backside as soon as I get a ping letting me know that the 5000 steps have been achieved, but I do feel a little inner voice saying, "Ha! You haven't been sedentary today!

@Suffolk_lass - I need to get onto planting up containers too, as have nice ceramic pots sitting around full of ready-to-be-composted tulips which could be nicely freshened up with geraniums & bedding plants. I find homegrown brachysome plants are very feeble & straggly compared to garden centre ones. Mine (despite being pinched out) are in bud but very spindly, whereas the ones I saw in a garden centre yesterday were nice mounds of foliage with a lot more promise of spilling artfully over the edges of baskets, etc. I am wondering if there were perhaps multiple plants in each pot, like my Mum used to grow her lobelias to get a better display. Nevertheless, I shall definitely get some free flowers from them & I expect they'll bulk up as the baskets get their weekly feed.
F

foxgloves

Hello Monday Money Savers,
Have had a lovely weekend, during which we had a family brunch meet-up at a big garden centre equidistant between us & my sister. I was given a big bag of lovely belated birthday presents to open over my cappuccino & we all enjoyed having a good catch-up before browsing plants, etc. Money was saved by Yours Truly NOT needing to stop off at Peterborough Services for a wee on the way home, lol, so none of the usual little trot into M&S Food for sandwiches, crisps & little flab-inflating treatettes because we have 'missed lunch'. We hadn't missed lunch, we just ate it later, when we got home from our own supplies.
Off to a good start this week. Budget-friendly things as follows:
*Watered greenhouse & veg troughs first thing.
*2 loads of laundry done & pegged out in the sunshine. A good breeze on too, so they will be dry in no time.
*Rubber chicken duties. It did a roast dinner on Saturday, cold chicken, salad & home made peri-peri wedges yesterday & I've divvied up the leftovers for fajhitas tonight, Man Stew tomorrow (jacket potato night), a sandwich & all the gribbly bits are currently in the slow cooker simmering into stock. 
*Made tomorrow's packed lunch & breakfast (which took care of the chicken sarnie!)
*Did my usual Monday morning budget updates. Not a lot needed doing - grocery budget to update, an item to which I treated myself yesterday needed to go on my Spends, needed to make a couple of notes, that was it for today.
*Logged into our energy account to check that following my emails to & from the Cephalopods, that the correct monthly payment is now showing. It is. I still have no idea why we were suddenly told our monthly payment would need to increase by £69 per month. Nothing seems to have changed, & I think it came about as the result of some kind of blip in their system rather than an account review, as their advisor said she could well understand how concerned I was when I saw that figure. Nothing indicates I need to be paying more than about a £2 increase per month......a vast difference from the £69 stated. For my own interest, I've jotted down their estimates of our projected energy costs for each month over the coming year. I have made an adjacent column for our actual costs so as to compare. 
*Did a survey. Very few around this morning but if I want to earn more than the £1 currently showing as my May PA earnings, I shall need to pull my finger out.
Soot has just come upstairs to inform me that it was his lunchtime 15 mins ago & tbf, he is correct, so I shall go & sort out cat biscuits then stop for lunch myself. This afternoon it will probably be too hot in the greenhouse, so I am simply going to aim to do 3 garden tasks, to be decided when I get out there. I still haven't had a chance to unbox my new sewing machine, so it would be great if I could get onto that too. 
Hope everyone is getting off to a decent start to the week, but if Monday has thrown a bit of brown stuff in the direction of the fan, just start the week again tomorrow, as on Tuesdays, the week is still very young.
F x

foxgloves

Morning Campers!
Well, have just furnished the piano tuner with a cup of coffee & feel I'm off to a decent start, as have already tidied kitchen, sorted clean laundry & done the ironing.
Apart from paying for piano tuning (which I remembered to include in May's budget), it should be a no-spend day today. I am not intending to do a whole heap of jobs today. My priority is finally to unpack & explore the new sewing machine which arrived a week ago today, but I haven't got around to yet. Then I shall watch the instruction dvd over a coffee & probably thread it up to have a little practice. One of my presents from my sister, BiL & neffs was 2 lengths of fabric - a linen one for a dress & a batik print for a top. I shan't be chopping into those until I have got to grips with both new machine & my planned 'practise dress' I intend to make from the old duvet cover fabric to get the fit & construction right.
Garden jobs can wait until tomorrow, esp as I managed to do an extra one yesterday, but I will need to water greenhouse stuff & bedding plants early evening.
It's jacket potato night so very little effort required. Mr F is making Man Stew to go on his. I intend to have cheese on a sweet potato with cannellini bean salad.
Right, enough verbiage.....time to get that big box open!
F x