Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

@ladyholly - I am encouraged by your wise words about wrong notes. I shall in future think of my imperfect playing as more authentic!

@Cheery_Daff - My jewellery is either overspilling from my box or draped all over my bedside chest of drawers. I have some nice things which require mending & I don't know why I haven't done this because I have decent jewellery pliers left over from when I used to do craft fairs years ago. I think it is going to feel like I've shopped several 'new' items from home because I no longer really know what I've got & a pair of heart earrings (to match a bracelet & necklace) which Mr F bought for me not long after we first got together have disappeared completely. The silly thing about that is that I absolutely remember putting them in a safe place. Well, it must have been very safe indeed as a decade later, I haven't been able to lay eyes on them! It's going to be interesting seeing what turns up.

foxgloves

Greetings Diary Readers,
Well, we decided to divide our efforts today so Mr F volunteered for the grocery shopping while I set about my kitchen task list plus a few other bits & pieces. Budget-friendly stuff as follows:
*Week 2 groceries bought & as it was a short list because December's meal plans prioritise food we already have in, I added on all the remaining store cupboard items from our festive food list too. That just leaves fresh stuff which we will most likely buy from the local market. We do still have wine to buy but we want to make use of a C**p offer for that, so will get it when we are next in the shop. We qualified for the 1st 2 of December's 'Little Treats' which are a free preserve to choose & a £3 voucher off anything. Mr F was pleased to see that the broken customer coffee machine is working again so he got his free latte!
Meanwhile back at the ranch......
*Prepped & soaked Christmas cake fruit in white rum.
*Baked a sponge for Mr F's New Year trifle.
*Also made a 'tin's worth' of blackberry & apple compote for the above. During Lockdown, we just couldn't get hold of a tin of raspberries for a festive trifle so as Mr F couldn't contemplate New Year without one (heaven forfend!!), I suggest we use some of our own frozen blackberries in a compote. It was lovely! I always put almond extract in the sponge & the combination seemed to work well together so as tinned fruit prices have gone up so much & we have lots of blackberries in the freezer, we decided to recreate Trifle a la Lockdown.
*Made pizza dough & 1/2 a dozen rolls.
*Last of Sunday's slow cooked gammon & some leftover sweetcorn will be used in the pizza topping along with chopped peppers from the freezer (from September's homegrown pepper glut), tomatoes & whatever else I fancy lobbing onto it.
*Finished the toe on present sock & made a start on sewing in the ends. The 2nd sock is already done up to the start of the foot shaping so hopefully won't take too stupidly long. 
*Rounded up a bag of library returns.
*Put out today's Advent item - our wooden candle arch. I remember when they first became 'a thing' - I think originally from Scandinavia as Mum bought me this one from the Swedish Emporium & as I remember having it in the front window at my flat, I must have had it since the late 1980s/early 1990s. Every year, we get it out & I say, "I wonder if this will be the year it stops working". I said exactly this today, Mr F plugged it in......& nothing happened. I thought that might be the end of it & said things like, "Well, it's had a good innings" but then I remembered I actually have a little bag of spare bulbs for it which have survived 2 house moves & Mr F disappeared with the kaput thing & when he returned, it was working! He tightened up all the bulbs, replaced one of them & serviced the old plug & it is now in its usual place on the kitchen windowsill. I have fairy lights draped on the kitchen dresser all year round, so with this additional arch of lights on the windowsill, it looks like a proper Yuletide kitchen, especially as I still have some bunches of herbs drying from the beam. So that's today's Advent item, which is old, but has lived to fight (light!) another year!
*Oh & the other of Mr F's tasks was 'sort of' budget-related......our car is booked in for a big service & MOT soon & we have also booked a valuation, so he has been tidying it up, vacuuming it, etc, so as to give a good initial impression. I say 'budget-related' because our aim was to keep our current car for 6 years (which are up in January) while putting the money away each month for the next one so as to bypass car finance/any kind of loan or dipping into our emergency fund. All the calculations were done on finding the 'sweet spot' between keeping our car long enough to save up a realistic amount but not so long that the part-ex value drops dramatically. We reckon we are about there. Mr F found one of our target vehicles (a pre-reg) listed for sale at a price which, if we get what we HOPE our current car is worth, would leave us with about £10k left in the Car Fund. Obviously this would be a Good Thing, so today's car valeting session was the 1st thing in moving towards actioning the above not too far in the distant future.
Nice to have a drier day - Soot & Ash have both enjoyed some garden time.
F x

daisy_1571

I remember when they became a thing too.  And I saw some new ones in the shops this year so they may be getting a revival 

Dxx

PennysIntoPounds

Aw I'm glad the advent arch just needed a bit of tlc and bulb changing, how lovely is it when things keep going with a bit of care 😊

Exciting MSEing about the car, excellent thinking and doing from you and Mr F 

foxgloves

@daisy_1571 - I do think they look nice & festive so a revival would be good.

@PennysIntoPounds - Thanks. Our Car Fund did get a boost from my 2 inheritences tbf, but the basic monthly savings formula came about because we realised that if we got our shizz together, we could save the equivalent of loan repayments for a few years into a designated account ready to buy a car outright, rather than have 3 years of loan repayments after the event. As both of us have had car loans in the past, our Car Fund system does make us feel more in control. It also puts a 'ceiling' on what we spend because we have a finite amount saved, whereas car finance, I think, can rather encourage one to spend more than is affordable. 
Still can't quite believe that I turned into a sensible person, as we regularly had a car loan each, which was obviously a big monthly outlay on top of other debts/overdrafts & Mr F also had a bad habit of carrying old car finance into a new loan.
F

Suffolk_lass

Over here, we have a set of Osram candle tree lights, bought for 20 schillings (pre Euro!) in Graz, Austria, the first Christmas after we got married, so 1990. I remember it well because Mr Sl had received his contract end-notice, which was waiting for us when we got back from honeymoon. So after the nephew's birthday trip to Oktoberfest at the end of September, he got the train to Graz from Munich, and we travelled back without him. I visited once a month, and collected him for Christmas by driving there on my own (therein lies a whole tail of its own!) - we did our Christmas shopping there in Graz. I also have a Solingen carving knife and those lights still work -  I managed to source a few spare bulbs from Germany a few years ago. Quality products, treasured!

Twolabsandacat

Just to say FG that I stole your new car fund idea!  My fund is growing nicely and it is so satisfying to know that when my current car is paid off i can upgrade 'free of charge' so to speak.

EssexHebridean

I don't budget separately for car replacement as its something which we know will come from our long term savings when needed. that said, my currently car is only 9 years old with MrEH's slightly "younger" - and mine's still got under 80k miles on the clock which is unheard of for a car of mine at that age, so fingers crossed both should last a good few more years yet! Got to laugh though- having had the previous car (from new) for 12 years, I still tend to refer to my current one as "my new car" - I mean, I've only had it 6 years..! 

foxgloves

Hello December Readers,
Thanks for all your continued comments & contributions which I always enjoy reading. It's nice to sign in to post an update & find that (as @EssexHebridean says), one has 'had visitors!'
A grey wet old day here. In fact, my one 4-minute foray into the garden resulted in my coat getting so wet, it had to go over a chair to dry off. Anyway, budget-friendly efforts have been as follows:
*Stuck stamps on Christmas cards ready for posting tomorrow. Wrote a letter to enclose in one of them - just one more letter to write. Unusually for me, I didn't buy any Christmas stamps, but I had plenty of another design already in stock so it made sense to use those.
*Made our Christmas cake. Now swathed in foil on the kitchen worktop where it will sit, slowly cooling until I turn it out tomorrow. At school, our cookery teacher always said cakes should be turned out & not covered until completely cold, so it's interesting that both Mary Berry & Nigella often advise differently. Last year, I made 2 Christmas cakes as volunteered to make a big one to take down to London with us. It was a Nigella recipe I've made a few times before & her advice was to remove it from the oven & wrap it, still in its tin, in foil so that the moisture stays in the cake. I have done the same today with my other favourite fruitcake recipe, the Jewel Cake from the WI Christmas cook book. The house smells beautifully of spices, fruits & general cakeyness, even with it being currently covered up. Just a reminder that ingredients like candied whole peel & crystallised ginger can be frozen. I froze the leftover peel after baking last year's cake & the ginger which was left over from summer's rhubarb jam making. It saves on buying new each time when only a little bit is needed. I know not everyone lives in reach of an eco-refill shop for buying ingredients in very small quantities.
*Shall be making a fish pie later - am using a box of trimmings from cutting up our recent fish box order, plus an older couple of fillets from the back of the freezer & the last of a bag of prawns. Along with a leek, which I like in fish pie, that will  make a decent-sized one with leftovers.
*Made tomorrow's packed lunch & porridge pot.
*Finished sewing in the ends on the present sock. Did the foot shaping on its pair & am now making headway along the foot. I still have 11 days to finish them so am confident I will get them done. 
*Wrote a task list for tomorrow. My aim is to get as many festive tasks done up front so we can just relax & enjoy the season.
*Put out today's Advent item which is a wooden bowl that my Dad won in a raffle (& gave to me because Mum didn't like it) filled with handknitted scandi-style baubles made by my sister. These will be going on the chest we use for a coffee table, so it is just a matter of time before Soot or Ash, or perish the thought, both of them working in tandem, decide these are the best game EVER!
*Squidged down the soggy garden to pull a bunch of carrots.
And that's about it, I think, so I shall sign out & have a quick trot round the house closing curtains & cosying down for the evening.
F x

PennysIntoPounds

What a productively cosy day 😊
Very kind of you to treat Soot and Ash to a decoration to enjoy hunting 😁