Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

Sun_Addict

A good coat is an investment that hopefully you should get many years wear from rather than buy a cheap one you’ll be replacing next winter. Sounds like a fair price to me plus you had the money in your pot and it didn’t go on a card. 

I love how you and Mr F work as a team on your budgeting. 

jackieblack

Just found your diary and lazily laid in bed reading up to date

Resourcefulness is one of my favourite things so am completely on board

Humdinger1

@foxgloves the cost is money well spent! Essential in our climate and a sensible price if slightly higher than your goal.  One thing I find is that rotating clothes means they last so much longer.   If the £8-£28 is haunting you, you could find a way to save that elsewhere I'm convinced. Onwards and upwards love Humdinger xx 

2Scratters

@foxgloves love my marine condiment coat purchased about 18 months ago. I have a couple of loyalty vouchers for said shop and a gift voucher from DH. I am trying to future proof my wardrobe into my retirement mainly from there but with timeless pieces 
You so made me laugh about the egg sandwich.

2 Scratters xx

Crazycatlady2

Love the idea of the summit

yesterday I made a list of money coming in and lost of direct debits and that’s as far as I got. We do have some savings behind us if hubby has a gap in employment but he’s hoping not and done his CV and says applying for 5 jobs today 😁

EssexHebridean

The sounds like a good price for the coat so long as it lasts well. We do tend to pay a little more for waterproofs - we've long learned that when you're walking up in the Islands and it's blowing a hoolie and lashing with horizontal rain, you rarely find yourself thinking that the extra few £ to ensure that the water stays outside rather than coming in through the seams wasn't well spent!   Having said that, we've both become big fans of the Warehouse of Mountains over the past few years - not the trendiest, but they do what you want them too - keep you warm and dry - and their outlet stores are frequently a great place to get a bargain"

2Scratters

Still the housekeeping money is sat in the bank!
Been shopping in HSBC (house store basics cupboard) and KFC (kept frozen chillers)
Done some batch cooking and making use of aged items from the fridge. 

Have a good week all

2 Scratters xx

kayannie

Regarding the "Warehouse of Mountains", they give a discount of (if I remember right) 15 per cent to Caravan & Motorhome Club members, including items already discounted in a sale. This also applies to several other outdoor clothing retailers.
KA

foxgloves

Hello all. Welcome to new readers & thanks everyone for your comments, which I always enjoy reading. I do agree about the coat being a sensible purchase. I tested it out in a rain shower this morning & although it wasn't heavy rain, the waterproof qualities are looking promising. I've filed the instructions about re-waterproofing it when necessary, so I will hopefully get my money's worth out of it, which I don't really feel I have done from my previous coat. I shall still wear it as there's lots of wear left in most of it, although the cuffs have fretted right through in places. It has a fur-lined hood so will probably become my gardening coat as will be warm when I'm out there in cold weather........like SOON, as all I can see from the kitchen window are oodles of jobs which need doing. So I don't have any guilt about buying a new one, especially as I didn't have anything waterproof to wear.
F x

foxgloves

Afternoon Campers,
A chilly wind here today, which is finding its way in through the cat flap. Must find my wrap to put around my shoulders when I've finished chatting to you.
Can report that we had a successful Money Summit yesterday. We went through the minutes of last year's to check we hadn't missed anything, but all was well with that. I did an update on the current position of our finances - current account, savings accounts & savings pots. We discussed my proposal that our 2023 goal should be to build up our 10 savings pots & Mr F was in full agreement. The pots work well & there is no need to change the categories or to add new ones. We looked at 2022's maximum 'cap' for each of the 10 pots & amended as necessary for this year. 
We had a general discussion about savings pots & how they are important as a first line of defence where budgeting is concerned. Being able to fund things from them protects both our current account (from burning through our buffer zone & into overdraft) & our emergency fund/general savings. With rising living costs (I'm very conscious that our energy DD has not yet been increased), there will be less money available each month to feed the pots, so we need to think carefully before we spend from them. 2020-2022 was very expensive in terms of our house refurbishment & purchases related to it (i.e curtains, blinds, furniture, carpets, rug etc). As the refurb project is now complete, we no longer have a budget for it that I can use for such things, so our regular House & Garden Pot needs to be a particular priority. 
We noted that we have a small area of water ingress from above the landing window & that our small area of flat roof, while currently appearing sound, is quite a lot older than they are expected to last, so even more reason to build this pot to offset what would need to be borrowed from our emergency fund should it suddenly deteriorate.
Finally, we discussed all the ways we could maximise payments into our savings pots. No surprises with any of these......
*Stick to all parts of our core budget, especially groceries. This month we are trialling a reduction of £30 on our grocery budget which we will stick with if it works for us.
*Canny meal plans. We agreed to continue with making a loose monthly plan (which we have trialled since November) & to pick the week's meals from that. Cooking from scratch, batch cooking & the rest of it goes without saying, as we always do it.
*Continue to build both nectar & Co-op dividend points again to use as 'Christmas Club' money as this went well last year.
*MAXIMISE SHOPPING FROM HOME. Savings Pots obviously grow faster if we spend from them less often!
*Remember to use my JL CC for any shopping at Waitr*se. We often forget this as Mr F sometimes decides to get the grocery shopping after work & I'm not with him, which means we miss out on a lot of loyalty points over the year (& points mean vouchers for spending on presents or offsetting spends from other pots)
*I will continue doing 2 survey sites which pay out in JL vouchers. These will be used for groceries, freeling up the equivalent money for savings pots.
*Fuel - We will be open-minded about where it is cheapest instead of assuming this is always at supermarket garages. In our town, for quite a few months, this has not been the case & the cheapest by a few pence per litre has been a branded garage. Agreed we will also continue to be generally mindful of mileage.
*Maximise our garden crops, concentrating on stuff that's more expensive in the shops, rather than for e.g maincrop onions & potatoes, which we can usually get at a reasonable price around here as we're quite rural.
*Energy consumption - carry on with current plans which have demonstrably reduced amounts of ££ showing on our smart monitor.
*Continue to make & buy items for the presents stash all year round.
*Consider resuming online sales of suitable items if the opportunity arises. Both of us have lost patience with this, but I think I would go back to it if I had any items I think would raise some useful cash for the savings pots.

We are both continuing to think about other savings pots-building ideas, but the above was the gist of our meeting. I've gone into sufficient detail without adding all the micro-savings we mentioned.
Oh, & finally, we identified which general savings standing order to reduce to cover the coming increase in our energy direct debit, should the size of the increase render this necessary. We hope not, but we though it was important to be realistic about the possibility. The only reason we haven't had any increase at all yet is because of the credit balance which built up when we had a different heating system installed during our recent renovations. 
We were fuelled by coffee throughout our discussions & we both think it was useful. In fact, Mr F said it's "essential", & I think he's right.
F x