Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

Humdinger1

@foxgloves I feel your pain, but agree 100% that you've done the right thing.  Imagine if you'd paid and then had to cancel! The worst of all possible outcomes.  This way, you have retrieved quite a few silver linings. Love Humdinger xx 

EssexHebridean

Ahh Foxgloves I'm sorry to hear about the holiday situation, although I completely understand the reasons for you cancelling, and yes, it does sound like the right call. Doesn't  make you feel any the less grumpy about it though does it. 

Baileys_Babe

Foxgloves sorry you have been put in this situation but I feel that was the right call.

At some point, you will be able to have a holiday from home to make up for missing out on going away.

Toni'sfriend

Foxgloves - We found ourselves in exactly the same position in January. Our GP said just to go ahead with a month long holiday to Germany but we decided to cancel as neither of us would have been comfortable with a delay to a referral and a diagnosis hanging over our heads. It was absolutely the right decision. It was disappointing but your health comes first. I am sure you've made the right decision and your Plan B is spot on. I hope everything works out well for you. xxx

Sun_Addict

A difficult decision for you but the right one given the uncertainties. At least you have next year to look forward to and your plan b sounds great. When Mr SA was so poorly 10 years ago I had to cancel two holidays we had booked for that year. It’s disappointing but health comes first. 

foxgloves

Thanks everyone. I did know this was the right decision, given all the unknowns, but it helped to read your comments & to see that so many sensible people in MSE diaryland would have done exactly the same.
F x

foxgloves

Afternoon Campers,
Much cooler here today & although I can take it a bit hotter, I must say it is feeling most pleasant not to be feeling so hot & muggy. Today is my Big Budget Day, so apart from sorting out yesterday's clean laundry into ironing & non-ironing (which yielded a depressing amount of the former), I have been ensconced at my desk up in Foxgloves HQ. June's budget reconciled & put to bed & July's all set & ready to go. 
Nothing really of note in terms of outgoings - I double-checked on our Cephalopods account that the reduced monthly DD does indeed begin in July, as the emailed letter didn't actually state a start date, but it does, so that's good as I had already amended Spreadsheet 1 (bills). I also decided to bump the piano tuning for another month, as I am still awaiting a hospital appointment date & need to maintain diary flexibility for that. The only other additional expense I needed to budget for this time is our quarterly pantry stock-up at A*di. As the last one was in March, I am not on top of the trajectory of their price increases, so have budgeted £100, as it is a long list. I think that it will cost less than this though, so will credit leftover money back to the budget for reallocation. Didn't need a fish box last time, which would have been paid for out of this month's budget, so that has also liberated a bit of money.
The only different thing is that having noticed the increase in interest rate on our Savings Plus account (the one which is allied to our regular current account), I thought it would make sense to add in a couple of new Savings Pots - one each for us to squirrel away some of our Personal Spends if we wish to do so. So far, we have just kept our Personal Spends in our non-interest paying current account & accounted for it on Spreadsheet 3, but as we rarely bottom out our Spends - mine just dipped below £100 at the end of June, but this is rare - I thought it would be worth having a simple facility for moving any serendipitous surplus or intended savings to a Savings Pot for that purpose. This will accrue a bit of interest (along with the main 10 pots) & when it is credited to the account, I can either add it to which ever pot is our priority at the time, or divide it between all 12 & share the largesse.....(though I don't think 'largesse; is really the word).....  So anyway, Mr F was all for this idea & by the time I next had cause to open the Spreadsheet file, he had already added 2 new lines to the Savings Posts spreadsheet. I had intended to withdraw some cash this week (from my Spends) but instead, I decided to get the new 'tweak' operational by instead taking the money from my secret cash tin & moving £50 of my Spends to the Savings Pot "Foxgloves' Spends - Savings". I'm not saving up for anything in particular, but I shall enjoy seeing it grow & it will be there when I DO see a gorgeous piece of something or other which would have definitely-no-doubt-about-it-whatsoever-oh-no gone straight onto a credit card or the 24-year old overdraft back in the Spendy Era. Anyway, enough of the yakk, suffice to say that as our budget cycle runs from 27th to the 26th of the month, it feels good to have July's plans all written up in the trusty Money Book & funds where they need to be. Re other Savings Pots, I paid the Leisure/Entertainment pot, as we will soon want to be taking an annual parking pass for a localish beauty spot out of that, the House & Garden Pot, the Holiday Pot (despite the cancellation for this year, we still have next year's cottage & cattery to pay for & the consolation prize, which is to have sufficient to book a cottage for 2025 early next year) & the biggest proportion went to the Presents Pot, as that is rather low in view of it being halfway to December (most of our family birthdays are during the winter months). I also made our regular £100 a month payment into our Car Fund, which is slowly growing into a means of us not needing any car finance again next time we buy a vehicle - a long time away yet.
Other tasks done for today - just tonight's nosebag to prepare which is very simple - some leftover BBQ burgers from one of Mr F's red mist butcher visits, which I intend to cook in the oven & serve in warm pittas with a large mixed salad. I would like to cash out my June P/A earnings, but there are a couple of payments still outstanding. I'll see if they turn up first. ON months where I don't need to buy much, my PA earnings would be a useful sum to add to the aforementioned Spends Savings Pot. I expect Mr F might do this too, as I've spotted him eyeing up cameral lenses when we've been out & about.
Bye for now,
F x

foxgloves

Hello m'dears,
Oh my days, I do not know WHERE today has gone! I seem to have been quite busy, but haven't done all that I intended. Small wins very much on the domestic front today:
*Did that big basket of horrid ironing - I do only iron what I consider really needs it, thankfully & the R4 programme 'More or less' was on at the same time, which is always interesting, so listening to that made the ironing go a bit quicker.
*Free fitness going for a walk around the village.
*Watered all the veg.
*Picked the last of the strawberries, a couple of courgettes & a bunch of spring onions.
*Made a pizza for tonight's dinner & half a dozen rolls with the remaining dough. Rolls now in the freezer as bread doesn't keep as well in this sticky weather. .......as for the pizza.....
*It's a bit of a use-it-up. I froze a tiny pot of leftover home made pesto when I made that last batch as there wasn't enough for another normal-sized pot, so I have spread the pizza base with that, & then topped it with a pot of leftover diced red pepper from the freezer, a small diced onion, the last tomato in the salad drawer & a finely sliced courgette. Cheese already on top ready to go in the oven. Have also rounded up other stuff from the fridge & made a mixed salad. It's shopping night tomorrow, so it's good to get the last odds & ends of fresh stuff used up so they don't get overlooked when the new stuff arrives.
*Did a meal masterplan for July, which was Mr F's idea, as the one I did for June has worked well. I have planned in a roast, a couple of slow cooker mains which will provide leftovers for other meals plus 2 weekend BBQs, a new recipe I want to try, an old one I have resurrected & also stuff we already have in the freezer. .......
*......then picked 7 meals for next week & copied them into the food planning pages in my diary.
*Made tomorrow's packed lunch (leftovers to go in the microwave at Mr F's work) & breakfast.
Still to do:
*Write the grocery shopping list, which shouldn't take long now that the meal plans are sorted. I shall just need to have the A*di quarterly pantry stock-up list on hand to make sure I don't duplicate stuff that is already due to be picked up there.
Then an evening of leisure as I intend to have a nice bath before watching 'Sewing Bee' with my knitting.
But honestly, I don't know where the day went.....the time has simply flown by.
Love F x

marionmgcars

Sounds like a very product day 👍

marionmgcars

Productive - I should always check before I hit post 🤣🤣