Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

KajiKita

Soot is a mischievous cat! 😼 😈 😉

Very well done on the £164 holiday budget surplus and the ‘to the penny’ credit card spends tracking - I am very impressed! 😊👏 I’m guessing from what you’ve said before that you will roll that surplus forward to the next holiday expenses pot? 

Well done on the continued kitchen wizardry too 😊

KK

foxgloves

@KajiKita - I did consider that, but I've already written up our current Holiday Payment Schedule in detail, & recently too, so I didn't want to start rubbing out & re-working the figures. I shall make good use of that surplus though. It's already been ear-marked for covering a couple of expenses which would have otherwise been paid from September's buffer zone & I shall find a good use for the rest of it.
F

foxgloves

Hello Monday Money Savers,
Thought I'd pop my post on before I head for a bath & hairwash, after which I'll probably get engrossed in my book & forget!
Today's budget-helping efforts:
*Dinner feels like a free one as Mr F cooked enough lovely WW lamb & marrow bake on Saturday to feed us tonight as well.
*Gas engineer arrived to service living room stove & boiler. Boiler needs new part. Part not in stock so repair will be done on Weds. Thankfully part only £60. I know we'll need to pay the servicing costs as usual plus labour on the fix, but it could have been a more expensive gizmo & better to find it before the CH is turned back on rather than a pool of water. 
*Garden pickings: 4 green peppers, jalapeno, cayenne & scotch bonnet chillies, carrots, pears.
*Did some greenhouse tasks - mostly cutting back chilli & pepper foliage to facilitate ripening. Administered a dose of free liquid worm tea afterwards. The lettuces I sowed in the growbag as soon as the aubergines came out have germinated & so far look like sturdy little seedlings.
*Weeded outdoor lettuce trough - another late sowing - putting on good growth, which is important while we still have the light. All the 'weeds' were actually self-seeded calendula, which I do like, but have plenty of saved seed for sprinkling in a more appropriate place.
*Investigated 2 big tromboncinos which I brought into the conservatory to ripen while we were away. They are like a courgette (though firmer & fewer seeds) when picked as summer squash, but if left to ripen to a beigey colour, they are more like a butternut or similar when cut open. These 2 were starting to rot at the far end, but having cut this off & had a good look inside, they were perfectly fine. Shall use them this week.
*Added a few more tasks to my list of things I'd like to get done over the next couple of weeks.
Right, the bath tub beckons.......
Wishing everyone a pleasant evening.
F x

PennysIntoPounds

Love hearing about your shopping from home successes, they always reinvigorate me to look at my bits and bobs with a more helpful eye

foxgloves

@PennysIntoPounds - Aw, thanks m'dear! I do find it satisfying from both a money saving & sustainability point of view. I was able to donate a little zip-up bag to Mr F yesterday when he was trying to find something for carting various cables around. An item of clutter moved out of my drawer & a free shopped from home win for him. 
Another one recently was repurposing a beautiful pashmina (which I very rarely wear these days) into a table runner. It's a drapey woven one which looks like brocade, not a woolly one & has given our dining table a warmer look for Autumn. Am still intending to get a new tablecloth with more of a seasonal feel (mine are all very summery or Christmas ones) but I am happy to sew one or adapt something & I may yet discover something I've forgotten about at home which I can use....or a charity shop gem. I think something in an autumnal shade bedecked with my pashmina-runner should look quite good.....though will doubtless still be sat & rolled around upon by Soot.
F 

PennysIntoPounds

Lovely wins. And of course Soot will help out by adding a splash of furry presence to any and all arrangements, such a considerate chap 😁😊
I recently put a cotton scarf on v!nted that could also do sterling work as a table runner and while many people have favourited it at bargain price, no-one has bought it so I might just keep it as a future table runner for myself! 

Humdinger1

Loving your diary as ever @foxgloves! It's so sustaining and I feel I'm in the room with you.  Your writing is fantastic love Humdinger xx 

foxgloves

Well, that's a kind thing to say, @Humdinger1. Thank-you.

foxgloves

Hello Tuesday Savers,
Busy day today. Still feel I am playing catch-up. Anyone would think we were away for 2 months instead of a single week! I think it is partly because our holiday coincided with a busy time of year getting the last of the veg crops in & processing them plus me being a bit of a control freak.
Anyway, today's budget-positive things:
*3 loads of laundry pegged out for free drying in the sunny breeze. Only intended 2 loads but good drying weather so also washed cat travel blankets.
*Baked a batch of bread rolls.
*Dealt with one of the large tromboncino squashes. Chunked it up & roasted with onions, garlic plus peri-peri spices for the batch which has gone into tonight's couscous & rosemary for the other batch which will be made into soup tomorrow or Thursday.
*Roast chicken stretching activity - It did us a Sunday dinner yesterday, will be eating some cold with the spicy roasted veg couscous & tomatoes tonight plus a stir-fry with noodles tomorrow. Froze some with leftover gravy & veg ready for when the next Epic Man-Stew hoves into view. Everything else into the slow cooker for stock.....should be a good one as added an additional carcass I'd frozen for exactly this purpose.
*Ordered a birthday gift to put away for Mr F. It was 2 blu-rays I know he wants so I told him not to buy them himself as I thought it would mean one present already sorted. (Lots of Winter birthdays amongst our family & friends so I like to get ahead of myself from both an organisational & financial perspective).
*Spent some much needed time on admin, a lot of which involved dealing with/clearing emails. Did a bit of financial filing & checked I'd input new payment amounts on Spreadsheet 1.
*Had a look at latest energy bill,  my main interest on this occasion being how much credit we have on our account as we enter the colder months. £523 credit which compares favourably with the £390 we had at the same point last year. I did say I thought that the request I received a few months ago to increase our monthly DD by (if memory serves) around 60% was some sort of AI blip in the Celphalopods' prediction tool algorithm. Our account didn't go into the red last winter on less of a credit balance so I am hoping we will be ok this year too. Noted we had been credited for our Free Electricity hour participation. As neither our heating, hot water or cooking is electric, I think we did well to earn a whole 35p! 
*Did a couple of surveys.
*Filed a 20% off voucher received in the post (in a pile of junk mail) in my voucher wallet in case it turns out to be useful to us or to someone else.
*Entered 3 competitions plus a free draw for a hamper for voting in an election for board members.
Garden pickings are going to drop off the list today as I need to fetch the laundry in & still have other tasks I want to do before the afternoon is over. Shall add them to tomorrow's list when I need to fit tasks in between us going out in the morning & the gas engineer returning in the afternoon to fit that broken part. 
Right, must crack on. Beautiful blue sky here today but now the afternoon is drawing on, I can feel just a little bit of a nip in the air so am going to be glad of the funky new slippers!
F x

PennysIntoPounds

I had to admit defeat and get the slippers out today. Was hoping to hold out for October but my feet were brrr. The heating however is remaining firmly off!