Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

@PennysIntoPounds - I would have insisted on Mr F's birthday also being celebrated in a lovely historic cottage anyway, but actually putting that sum away while it was available & not allocated elsewhere has meant that I shouldn't need to make a sharp increase to our monthly payments into the Holiday Pot. Of course, back in the day, whatever our intentions, holiday cottage rentals were lobbed straight on a credit card. It feels much better to be in control of saving for such things now. I do miss camping though! We took up camping while we still had a mortgage but were trying to get an emergency pot & savings pots together, as well as making overpayments to a modest loan we took out in order to avoid a car finance package. We'd intended to continue camping for the life of our tent, but I then shortened this to no life at all by falling rather dramatically through it. The following year, our finances improved for a very sad reason as I inherited my half of my parents' estate, & once we had paid off the remaining bit of our mortgage, we were able to afford an annual holiday cottage again. I do miss all the fun we had on our camping trips though. That's why we like to book an en-suite hostel room at our favourite campsite - you kind of get the vibe with none of the tent-drying faff, weather issues or finding one's tent was yet again pitched smack under the flight path of migrating geese.
F

foxgloves

Only a quick one from me today as am heading into the city centre later & staying for the evening too. Money saving will doubtless be thin on the ground once we get there - concert tickets already paid for but parking is astronomical & we shall need to eat too, though we do make a yellow sticker sandwich hunt in mini-Waitbl00m plus free coffees part of the fun! I'm sure I once paid almost a £ for a banana last time so I am taking one from home (17p!) It makes it less of an expensive day if we eat a reasonable meal at lunchtime before we go, so that is what we are going to do. Not wanting to sound stingy, but we do have a few other concerts booked & it all adds up, as we all know once food & parking have been included. We don't save anything by going on the train as would have to pay parking for our car at the nearest station & the train fares alone come to more than city centre parking. Hoping to make good use of our time to browse for a few Christmas present ideas.
The 3 loads of laundry crammed onto the heated airer finally dried though I had to leave it on all night. Everything now sorted & put away. For such a big basket, there wasn't much ironing, so I felt that helped offset the airer use a little. Mr F went to get Week 3's groceries. He was able to use £2.50 worth of loyalty vouchers on items on the list & came in under budget. We shall still need to buy coleslaw but will still be nicely under budget. This included another 1L bottle of the EV olive oil which we like which is currently on offer at £8 instead of its usual £12, which feels like a decent saving. 
In other money news, was pleased to see that the money I tried to pay to my credit card from the wrong account has been bounced back to me this morning as the customer advisor said it would, so I transferred it to our current account & paid it across correctly this time. I see that my online credit card statement is about to land so it will be a good opportunity to check it all through post-palaver.
Did a survey - I haven't cashed out of PA for at least 2 months as just haven't really been engaging with surveys as much but I shall certainly be cashing out at the end of this month as my earnings are now £30+ & I am back to checking in on most days.
Must remember to pop my notebook in my handbag so I can jot down any useful present ideas I see while I'm out & about this afternoon. Yes, I know I can make notes on my phone, but I am likely to forget to look at them, & in any case, I don't like having my phone in my hand while I am out. It's far too easy just to pop in down & lose it....not that I ever have done that, but it's very much the sort of thing I COULD do!
Right, jobs done so I think I will have a go at that never-ending still unfinished sock!
F x

Sun_Addict

Enjoy the concert. 

Four_Seasons

How exciting have a lovely time. Covid jab yesterday so not too brilliant today but probably not as poorly as you felt lately xx

Makingabobor2

Enjoy the concert. X

KajiKita

Hope you have a lovely evening

KK

foxgloves

Thanks all, yes, we did have a lovely evening & even bought a Christmas present during our browse in JL, so that was useful. Was very pleased to find that our preferred street parking is available again. It's more expensive than the multi-storey but I much prefer it for feeling safe as it is a very well-lit street & always busy. My problem with the cheaper multi-storey is that I have a phobia of using lifts. I can't bear being shut in small spaces so always have to take the stairs. The stairs in this case are so steep & there are so many flights of them even to access the lowest couple of levels that there is actually a prominent health & safety notice at the bottom, warning people that they are hard physical work. I have climbed up them in the past & almost expired by the time we got to the car but last time, to add to the unpleasant experience, the stairwell was rather bedecked with wee & there were people blocking the way who could barely move to make way for stair users because they were off their faces on spice. We have been using street parking since then but in quite a poorly lit road so it felt like a good start to the evening to find our old favourite parking place was back in use. I will happily pay the extra few quid for a safer experience. Don't laugh (oh go on, then you can!) but I always feel safer out at night in the city centre when Mr F has just shaved his head, as it makes him look a LOT tougher & scarier than he is! I felt so sorry for the many street homeless who were bunkering up in doorways. I moved up to the city as a student at the age of 18 & it has always been a problem, but the last few years have seen an increase (in the smaller city we visit too) & it is so sad to see people with all their belongings gathered around them, trying to shelter under cardboard, cheap broken tents & umbrellas - I know that the needs of the street homeless are many & complex, but I feel sure that no-fault evictions can't be helping this situation, as well as addiction & mental health breakdown. It is very sad to see so many desperate people & makes me grateful for what I have, but angry about protracted levels of inequality & erosion of safety nets.
F

KajiKita

I hear what you saying about safe parking when going out in the evening. I got lost trying to make my way back to a multi-story car park in Birmingham once and ended up asking a homeless man (who I'd bought food for earlier in the day - long story) where it was. He walked me there and insisted we walked up the ramps in the car park, not the stairs, as the stairs were where the 'nasty people are'.  

I'm glad you had a good evening overall 

KK

Sun_Addict

I'm glad to hear you had a lovely evening and secured a safe parking space. I work (virtually) with colleagues from all over the UK and they've reported exactly the same situation in their city centres. I think the situation worsened during the pandemic when the druggies seemed to take over the city centres. It's very sad to see so many people having to live on the street. I used to pass a man on my way to work in the morning who was living in an empty shop doorway with his little Yorkshire Terrier. He'd practically made the doorway into a home with hanging rails for his clothes etc. I haven't seen him for some time so I'm hoping he and his little friend have now got a roof over their heads. 

foxgloves

While we were browsing festive displays yesterday, we saw some lovely Christmas glasses - the tumbler variety rather than wine glasses. Mr F really wanted the cat one & I liked the robin one so as they were only £6 each, we decided we'd buy one each to enjoy using in December. It wasn't until I was unwrapping them this morning & popping them in the cupboard that I suddenly thought back to a 'Debtisode' (longterm readers may recall that I recounted several of these in my last diary)
Back in the Spendy Era, I lived in constant dread of my card being refused at the till or spat back out from cashpoints with the rude message 'You have insufficient funds'. I was in Debenhams home department on one of my very frequent shopping expeditions & found some beautiful wine glasses. Did I need new wine glasses? No, but they were very lovely, all in different jewel colours with a sort of 'petrol on water' shimmer. I remember taking 6 (one of each colour) to the counter & presenting my debit card, hoping today was not going to be the day my financial chickens came home to roost. The assistant started ringing them through the till then drew my attention to a leaflet on the counter. Oh yippedy doo! I could sign up for a store card there & then, pay nothing today AND get 20% off the lovely glasses. I had filled in the application in a matter of seconds & they were mine! As anyone else who had one of these particular little plastic 'bank account emptiers' will remember, it was a card from a group of stores, so I could also use it in other shops too. How useful! While I never ran up 1000s of £s worth of debt on this card, I never paid it off either. My statement would arrive, I'd pay the minimum, the balance would drop a little, I'd add a few more purchases to it, etc, & this went on for a few years. Funnily enough, it was the arrival of Mr F on the scene which resulted in the demise of that store card's profitable relationship with me. Now, he was no budgeting angel. Far from it. He was more endebted that I was back then - by way of a slight defence, I should add that whereas I had received several financial bailouts from my parents since my student days, he had not, so our attitudes to spending were pretty much even - spend it now, maybe think about it later, but probably not. Anyway, I must have been having a flicker of lightbulb (of course it quickly self-extinguished as previous flickers had) moment as I remember I was sitting at the dining room table at my old house moaning about my latest store card bill & how it was going down so slowly. He took it off me, looked at my last minimum payment, did a few calculations & informed me that I was paying interest at 62%. HOW much? I now know that was an horrendous amount. I didn't owe that much on it at the time so paid it off over the next couple of months & never had another store card, although the overspending & refusal to budget continued for several more years. They used to be a very common vehicle for debt, didn't they? There was always that 20% offer on the day one signed up. I wonder how many people signed up to get the discount, thinking they'd snip the card up as soon as the item was paid for, then continued using it because it was just too tempting. Plenty, I reckon.
Funny how unwrapping those 2 pretty festive glasses we bought yesterday brought back this memory of getting that naughty storecard. Mr F had his own nostalgia moment last night when someone walked past us wafting 'Aromatics', which was the perfume I regularly wore when we first got together. He said it only takes one brief whiff of it for him to be transported back to the early days of our relationship, when I used to spray it on his letters which did not go down well with his ex. Funny things, memories.
F x