Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

Dear Readers,
Nothing of excitement today (when is there?) - in fact, it's been a classic day of old-style money saving which went like this:
*Baked the sourdough I made yesterday.
*Did the ironing & solved the Mystery of the Missing Leggings (that sounds like an Enid Blyton offering, doesn't it?) Turns out that there was another small earlier pile waiting to be ironed which I had put out of sight. It tumbled out when I fetched the ironing board so I had extra to do but at least I could stop wondering how one earth I had lost a pair!
*Today's garden pickings: Blackberries, some of which I had for lunch topped with thick kefir. Nomnom!
*Tried on a couple of tops which were too tight in May when I was assessing my summer clothes. Both now wearable.
*Took vintage kitchen door curtain down, mended it & laundered. Still blowing dry on the line as we haven't had any rain yet today, despite Mr F pinging me a piece of video from his workplace where a deluge was bouncing off the roof. He works about 26 miles north of Foxgloves Manor so I think the showers must have been very localised today.
*De-gunked the pond, which is a bit of exercise at least, despite being a boring task.
*Greenhouse jungle maintenance - mostly side-shooting & tying in tomatoes (followed by the outdoor ones) & triffid aubergines. 
*Potted up a piece of old root ginger because it has such a robust green shoot on it, it seemed worth a try. 
*Have so far managed to get an additional 3 days' use out of my empty foundation bottle by using a coffee stirrer. I prefer foundation in glass bottles from a sustainability point of view but the pump tops do leave a lot behind if one isn't prepared to dive in with a nifty implement.
*Mr F was sent a money off minimum spend voucher from a supermarket not local to us, so he's going to swing by the one in the town where he works on his way home to use it to stock up on cat food as it will reduce the price of persian queen 40-boxes nicely.
*Did a couple of surveys.
*Entered a competition.
*Realised that our July meal plans only went up to the day my sis & nephew go back to London so have planned for the last few days of the month & will be writing grocery shopping list shortly. As we overspent July's grocery budget by quite some margin, I prioritised what we already have in the freezer/pantry along with our fresh homegrown produce.
Despite being busy, I haven't yet achieved my daily minimum steps so I will also need to spend a bit of time marching around purposefully putting things away. If Soot had been wearing a paw-dometer this morning, he would be on similar steps to me, as he decided at about 10.15 that it was a matter of urgency to secure an early lunch. I didn't succumb because I know him of old, & he would have just wanted Lunch #2 at normal cat lunchtime which is 1pm. So he followed me around for the entire intervening time, meowing so loudly, I'm frankly surprised he doesn't have laryngitis. He was so under my feet, it was actually like going around wearing a single large black furry slipper! 
Ah well, nice to chat as always, but I must sign out now & get that grocery list done, then I can look forward to sofa time & Sewing Bee later on. Easy meal tonight - am making kedgeree with a side helping of courgettes wokked with garlic.
F x

KajiKita

Thank you 🙏 😊

KK

PennysIntoPounds

Well done for another productive day, and for the tops now being wearable! Your commitment to not being sedentary is obviously working well.
Very few things have me exclaiming loudly 'do you take me for a mug?!' as much as leftover product in containers. There's a weeks worth of toothpaste/ten quids worth of moisturiser/etc etc in there!

foxgloves

@PennysIntoPounds - Oh yes, me too! The one I wang on about the most is lipstick. The design of the tube means we are throwing away 1/3 of the product for which we have paid!! For years, even sometimes when I was still a spendy madam, I have insisted on extracting the remaining 3rd with a lip brush. I don't think I can come up with any other product where people unquestioningly pay for a container designed to waste the 33.3%. It is the equivalent, say for a £9 lipstick, of going outside & depositing £3 of your cashola straight down the nearest drain! 
F

Elisheba

What a naughty monkey Soot is! Thankfully my cats were never accustomed to getting lunch. But rain or shine, especially now I am working from home, the dinner campaign starts between 3 and 4pm 🤔. And when they are running around your feet they are a total trio hazard. I'm always worried I'll end up standing on black cat and doing her some damage!

LzzyIsGod

Our feline master also seems to have increased her food intake this week amd is eating me out of house and home!

foxgloves

Hello Diary Friends & thanks, as always, for your comments,
Just a quick one from me today as I still have quite a few tasks I'd like to get done this afternoon. On the money saving front, I've done the following so far:
*Quick laundry load as shan't want to be wasting weekend time with my sister & nephew on tedious essentials. Pegged out once the drizzle had stopped.
*Today's garden pickings: French beans, courgettes, an aubergine & blackberries.
*Made pastry to get ahead of myself for tomorrow's baking. Also lined baking tins while coffee machine was doing its thing..
*Reconciled July's budget. It is payday/Big Budget Day tomorrow but I also have baking to do so I have cracked on with the budget prep today. I was glad I did, as there were a lot of oddments to sort through, a funds transfer to do & although I knew we'd well overspent July's grocery budget, I discovered this morning that I'd also utterly bogged up my recording of it & due to a blank space at the end of a page, had started adding it to June's records! All sorted out now, but it completely threw the little grey cells to begin with.
*Found an anomaly with our SIM-only contract. I have a monthly payment amount on my spreadsheet which is quite a lot lower than what they are actually collecting. The account is in Mr F's name as I am bored to stultifaction by phone contracts so I have asked him to sign in & ascertain what we should be paying. I strongly suspect it has gone up in price & he hasn't remembered to tell me for the spreadsheet. He has suggested we call into the provider's shop next time we are in town & see if we can get a better deal. I am all for that but will remind him that neither of require a new phone!!
*Did a few surveys & cashed out £10 which was more of a faff than usual because I had to sign up for a silly online wallet thing which seems unnecessary & am unlikely to use.
*Entered a competition & a prize draw (for a crate of wine which is probably going @PennysIntoPounds' way!)
*Made tomorrow's packed lunch & breakfast.
*Froze half of the sourdough loaf I baked the other day because with us both having cut our bread intake (esp the Man Himself), it was clear that it was just going to sit there going stale. Can't bear food waste, so into the freezer it went. Still need to prep & freeze latest picking of French beans too.
My daily steps target is still some way off because of all the desk time, but I intend to sweep the back courtyard soon & I do find wielding a brush around with fake enthusiasm racks up quite an encouraging amount of steps. Easy-peasy nosebag tonight as I am making pasta using a pot of the pesto I made & froze recently with plenty of sauteed-till-caramelised courgette & aubergine slices in it, so basically that's some veg slicing & grating a bit of cheese plus cooking the spaghetti. Btw, thought the Frog had made a Lazarus-like return last night, but Mr F assures me that although there is a slight problem, it is probably just due to our mixer tap being rather past middle-age now, & is NOT the Frog. 
Right, I am signing off, administering cat treats (only 3 a day which Soot can barely believe because I have recently found out that Mr F has been giving them 5 & yes, I wouldn't be surprised if Soot could count where food servings are concerned!), than fetching the broom for boring but necessary sweeping. It just makes more work if all the crud blowing around on the courtyard huffs its way into the conservatory.
Cheers,
F x

foxgloves

Morning Campers!
Money saving tasks on today's agenda:
*Set August's budget & move usual funds to savings (minus that infernal speeding fine, of course).
*Filing session. 
*Bake large pastry case.
*Bake my old  circa 1978 foolproof chocolate cake recipe. This one will be filled with home made blackberry jam & vanilla buttercream, with remaining buttercream on top, liberally sprinkled with crushed flakey chocolate bar. Getting ahead, as a slice of this will be tomorrow's dessert when we have our guests. It's a nice cake, but will also make use of blackberry jam as still plenty left from last year & this year's blackberries are going to be prolific.
*Iron a top. I have about 4 or 5 summer outfits inc. the 2 dresses I made recently so as my weight is very slowly going downwards, I'd rather not buy any new summer gear until next year. This means ensuring I always have at least 1 summer outfit washed, pressed & ready to wear. Want to preserve the Clothes Pot atm.
*Garden pickings: Blackberries
*Water greenhouse veg.
Right m'dears, that's my coffee finished so I shall crack on. Grocery budget felt out of control as July progressed so it is going to feel good to do all my Big Budget Day sums & have a re-set.
F x

honeybee1234

Hope Big Budget Day goes well! 

foxgloves

@honeybee1234 - Thanks. I always feel better when I've done it. It's that feeling of being properly in control
F