Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

Morning diary readers,
Well, by 7.10, I'd already voted in one local election & complained at the polling station about the other one. In fact, for only the 2nd time in my life, I actively spoiled my paper (1st time for Mr F, I think) & I will be writing to the Parish Clerk next week. So that got me in high dudgeon good & early & I was ready for my coffee when I got back. Has there been any money saving? Well, there are a few things today, I suppose:
*As we were up early for voting, we finalised the meal plan (our meal planning runs from Saturday to Friday) & wrote the rest of the shopping list. We did go with Mr F's idea of using the lamb we already have in our freezer rather than buying a chicken or other meat. And I've planned knock-on meals from the leftovers too.
*Mr F is again stopping for the Waitbl00m portion of the list on his way past later tonight so have reminded him defo to pay using JL cc, as they are doing double loyalty points atm for the coronation - (this is about as involved in the coronation as we will actually get!)
*Pulled some homegrown rhubarb from the triffid patch &........
*Made a batch of rhubarb & date chutney, at least one jar of which will be part of a festive foodie gift. Did a bit of use-it-up with vinegar content. Instead of buying a new bottle of red wine vinegar as required by the recipe, I used the last of a bottle of fig & honey vinegar received as a gift, a bit of my home made blackberry vinegar & for the rest, just ordinary cider vinegar as I had a bottle already open. I had hoped this culinary endeavour would have effected more of a reduction on the triffid patch than it actually has. Never mind, every little helps. If we were not both committed to dieting, I would be making crumbles, fruit sponge, muffins & all the usual rhubarb bakes. Might make some rhubarb & ginger jam at some point soon, I'll see.
*Checked my CC account for a particular transaction I would have expected to see there yesterday. Still not showing even as pending. Will check again tomorrow or Saturday. No problem, as it's an item I have budgeted for, but I am waiting to pay the money across & to annotate in the trusty Money Book that I have done so.
*More use-it-up today......am making kedgeree (using smoked mackerel) for dinner. Spotted a bundle of Spring greens lurking in the fridge doing precisely nothing, so am going to shred them & stir-fry with garlic & chilli to serve with it. Mr F can eat piles of these, so much better than wasting them or letting them get to the King Limpy of the Very Limp Vegetables stage.
*Did a couple of surveys - very low-paying atm. Ipsos a better paying one, but then stopped midway with an error code. Decided I would also stop midway if this was the attitude!
*Need to do a bit of potting up in the greenhouse this afternoon. I managed to get the main border in our front courtyard weeded & cut back yesterday afternoon & dug out a decent clump of aquilegia seedlings. The leaves look different to our usual pinks/creams inbred Foxgloves Manor aquilegia varieties & I think they may either be my Mum's pretty white variety or one from my friend who saves a lot of seed. Either way, I rescued a selection of the strongest & stood them in a jar of water & will pot them up to see what happens. I also cut back a nice penstemon, which provided a lot of cuttings material, so I have prepped several of those & they will be in their glass jar of water a bit longer to see if they will root. Got to love free plants for not a lot of effort!
*Oh, & will need to write a town list for tomorrow, which I always find makes best use of the parking charge & saves one of us having to go in again in the week for things we've forgotten. Might treat ourselves to coffee & scones in our favourite little indie cafe, as we intend to stay home for the rest of the weekend.
Well, I'd better go & find some lunch & get on with my afternoon.
Take care all,
F x

EssexHebridean

Just catching up and enjoying all the savings pot chat. We're firmly in the camp of "lots of individual one" and generally speaking all ours are rolling too, rather than capped. I periodically review them and if anything is looking a bit fuller than necessary will shift money to the main long term savings where it will earn a bit more interest - and at the same time also take a view on whether any monthly payments in need review - we recently reduced the car payments in  by £20 and increased the holiday ones by the same amount, for example as with both cars being newer costs there are lower these days than they were a few years ago - meanwhile holidays just seem to get ever more expensive! I couldn't cope with the idea of one big pot as I'd be concerned that it would only take one failure to update a spreadsheet and I could completely lose track and end up not knowing where I was, so it's individual pots all the way for us. 

It's good to know there are a few of us on the freezer use up mission now - MrEH and I were discussing this earlier on the way in to London and agreed that we need to get the audit properly done so we know where we are and can plan. I'm currently the victim of a "big tub of ham stock in the freezer" though so I think that might come out over the weekend with the makings of some soup - there is ham and pre cooked yellow split peas in there too and between them I think the individual items will free up more space than the soup will take up. 

As you said - there is always inspiration to be had and lessons to be learned on here! 

foxgloves

@EssexHebridean , Yes there are certainly a few of us intent on hammering freezer contents over the next few weeks. Having said that, since I decided on this as a definite course of action, I have actually put more in there than I've actually taken out! Over yesterday & today, I've removed precisely 1 teeny pot of chopped peppers, 1 identical teeny pot of sweetcorn & a pack of smoked mackerel. There will be more fish coming out tomorrow, then we will be working to the new meal plan which prioritised freezer stocks, so progress should improve.
F

foxgloves

@themadvix - I would enjoy the notional title of 'Queen of Shopping from Home", but while I have "coined the phrase" & found it a hugely useful mantra, I was not the first to use it. I remember (absolutely ages ago) another diary writer or contributor to the DFW daily small things thread or even a post on the old-style thread using it. I remember thinking it was a perfect description of what we'd been doing while debt-busting, & we still do it now to enable staying within our budget & meeting savings goals.
F

themadvix

As a suggestion for all your rhubarb (from another triffid-like rhubarb owner) that is a bit different and healthier (and delicious): https://www.feastingathome.com/roasted-salmon-with-rhubarb/

I’ve not started on the freezer here yet either - an inventory is one of the weekend’s jobs!

Tescodealqueen

I think that Memory Girl used to use the term shopping from home when I followed her thread but not sure if she was the first to use it. Seems odd that there don’t seem to be any elections here but I think we may have had ours last year. Bought some cream for scones but will be using ingredients from home for the scones and jam so quite a cheap coronation weekend here as I have a couple of bottles of Prosecco in the house from Christmas 

milann

Very jealous of the rhubarb chat. The cats around here have killed mine off 💩😡 It was growing in a big container and doing really well until the cats thought it’d make a good litter tray…..I don’t suppose the very cold days helped. I need to investigate another crown or two. 👍

carolbee

Re the rhubarb, if anyone lives near Margate, you can have some from our allotment!

foxgloves

@themadvix - Thanks for the recipe link. Defo something to try while we have salmon in the freezer.
@Tescodealqueen - I don't remember MemoryGirl, but you could be right. It was years ago & it just struck me at the time that it was a good description of what we were doing. Of course, back in the Spendy Years, our first option would invariably be to buy whatever it was instead, but that is not a methodology for paying down debt, so it had to stop. I wonder how many £££s shopping from home has saved us over the last decade.
@milann - Could you find a patch of garden for a rhubarb crown? It would get bigger than in a pot, so cat activity would be less likely to damage it.
@carolbee - I'm the same! I'm thinking of cutting 1kg bundles, tying them rustically with string & newspaper & sticking them on our front courtyard for a £1 donation through our letterbox for the local cat rescue. Couldn't believe what some of the supermarkets were charging for a few stems the other week when I looked.
F x

milann

Foxgloves, unfortunately or fortunately depending on how I feel 😂😂 the garden railway takes over the garden as it’s only a small garden.