Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

Thanks everyone! Have a lovely day.

@Sun_Addict - Lol, I hope you don't have to stage 'political chicken pox'!

foxgloves

Good morning to my favourite little stuffing balls!
Well, we are still very much in the 12 Days of Christmas so all very festive but it is time for some good frugal behaviours to set us up for the weeks ahead. So.....
Today: Turkey dismantling day. Just need to self-fortify with breakfast & coffee, then I intend to set about seeing how many tasty meals I can batch cook for the freezer (& tonight's meal) from our lovely turkey.
Tomorrow: Big Budget Day. Time to reconcile December's budget & set January's. 
While I'm not usually the most fervent fan of January (& less so this year because of re-roofing hassle & expense), I do like a fresh start, so will enjoy doing some planning & beginning new projects as the month progresses.
Right, time to re-caffeinate.
Hope you are all enjoying the festive season.
F xx

Blackcats

Looking forward to hearing about your leftover turkey batch cooking work.
Sending ongoing festive good wishes from one of your little stuffing balls 

Suffolk_lass

I've just made a pie with some of ours - topped with peas so the top crust doesn't stick - we have visitors again today - a dog walk, a pub and a pie back at home. All good!

2Scratters

Morning All,

Am in the stage of preparing for 2026 as we have some big stuff to happen this year in rebuilding our new kitchen and DH having to come to terms of what he is actually capable of doing. He will have plenty of man jobs to do just not the dirty and heavy ones.
Our campervan is due to get a tidy and paint job done in the new year. We could end up sleeping in it yet, at the front of the house, which will be to much disgrace of our next door neighbour. 
A new resourceful method I have acted on is my special (expensive) solid deodorant that is a bit wild and reusable container. I found out again there is as much left in the cartridge, a bit like the lip stick too (where now I am using my lip brush to get at the rest of that product too). I repurposed my spatula that comes with the hair cream remover to use get out the rest of the deodorant product. I can feel myself getting back into check with less wastefulness. This also justifies the cost of the items 

I have decided to continue with the same cost of food budget for the 2 of us at £250 pcm (excluding the dog food which is 2 separate dry food 15kg bags as have an older dog and an under 1yr old. Each bag lasts about 6 weeks.) We have mostly been able to save £50 a month into another food pot as is used for purchasing meat from the butcher and doing some farm shopping too. 
I am contemplating about moving our emergency fund into an ISA for now and have it making some more money. There is enough for 12months and feel it would be good to start again building it back up just to help with the focus. Our CT was paid up in December and could use that payment into the start of a new year to give it a healthy start. 

Enjoying the Christmas period

2 Scratters xx

PennysIntoPounds

Hope all is well foxgloves and that we just haven't heard from you because you're too blissfully buried in books and baileys, making the most of the festive season 

weenancyinAmerica

Wishing you a happy holidays. Look forward to reading all about it in your new year's postings.

foxgloves

Morning Frosty Campers! It took Mr F a good while scraping the ice off the windscreen this morning, & although it is bright & sunny now, the lawn is still frosted, Thanks for all your comments & contributions which I always enjoy reading. I think I shall post my catch-up in chunks, starting with.......
TURKEY DISMANTLING DAY
Not going to lie, we ordered a fresh free range bronze turkey - a more expensive choice than a frozen one but the cost was covered by my share of a small royalties payment from one of Dad's music publishers. Dad loved Christmas so it seemed a fitting use of the money. It was delicious & Mr F did a fab job of cooking it. As always (channelling the spirit of my Nana), I was determined to make the most of it with plenty of divvying-up of leftovers & batch cooking. I still make turkey soup almost exactly as Nana taught me when I was in my teens - the only difference being that neither of us like pearl barley, so I don't include that. In total, our Christmas turkey provided 32 portions:
Christmas lunch x 2
Cold Boxing Day lunch x 2
Sandwich x 1
Turkey & mushroom supreme x 2
Slices in gravy with 2 small portions of stuffing for a 'free' roast dinner x 2
Turkey chilli (the WI Christmas cook book recipe with a couple of tweaks) x 7
Turkey bhuna x 4
Turkey & vegetable soup x 6
Festive Epic Man Stew x 4
Plus 2 x containers of stock.
Have already had some of the turkey chilli & I added some dumplings (leftover suet from making my mincemeat) to a couple of portions of the soup last night so all of the above will be useful January supplies as we consolidate everything budget-related to try & offset some (even just a little) of the £8.5k we will shortly be paying for the new roof.
Can you believe that next year's Turkey Dismantling Day is already in my diary? Which leads me neatly onto the next chunk of my catch-up........
F

foxgloves

GETTING ORGANISED FOR 2026
I was so pleased to unwrap a new Emma B*water 2026 diary on Christmas morning. Mr F always incudes one in my presents because having tried various types of planner/diary & also ruling up my own from  blank notebook 'bullet journal'-style, this turned out to be the one which works best for me in terms of organising our household & myself. I adore nice stationery so it is always an enjoyable task to sit down between Christmas & New Year with my pens & pencils, writing up my new diary. I like a page to a week so I can get an overall 'feel' of the days ahead. This diary always has a monthly planner which I use for meal planning, & also a monthly  'Notes' page which I use to jot down anything I need to remember when budgeting that particular month. While Mr F was engaged in watching something involving alien invasion, I wrote in 2026's holidays, birthdays & anniversaries, Big Budget Days, concerts, cattery dates, glass & garden bins (the two I am most likely to forget!), milkman, annual vet check-up, etc, & also copied in my Emergency Planning list/notes from the back of this year's diary. I am not a 'prepper', but I am very definitely a planner.
Then I added in our meal plan for the week ahead. We have the makings of a January master meal plan too, but my preference was to leave several blank days on that, as I want to add a few creative use-it-ups as well as take the opportunity to try a few new recipes, especially slow cooker ones, as I do like to have that big old crock sitting simmering away on the worktop during these colder days. Hey, I hear we might be on for a little snow?! Hope so, I do like seasons to feel different - I don't find endless grey drizzle very stimulating in the way that a crisp cold morning or sunshine reflecting in frost crystals just seem to make me want to get wrapped up for a walk.
As soon as I had finished writing up my new 2026 diary, I felt much more in control (especially with the wretched roof hoving into view) I like to know what I am doing, when & how. I definitely enjoy life more when I have a grip of things & my lovely flowery diary helps me achieve this. The monthly full-sized flower pictures in these diaries are so nice that I always save them from my old diary & display them throughout the year on the kitchen pinboard so I can enjoy them again.
F

Sun_Addict

Well no one can say you didn't get your money's worth out of that turkey! I love the festive edition of the Epic Man Stew 🤣

I enjoy writing future events in my diary and I always have a calendar I can write on in my home office. That's a great idea to save the pictures so you can enjoy them for longer.