Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

@rtandon27 - I think it can sometimes be a good attitude to have. None of the other household tasks on my radar have to be done today & I do have a list of stuff rtg for tackling over the rest of the week.

@EssexHebridean - Thanks. headache has receded to general muzziness now but I think it may improve more once I am sitting outside with my book. Fresh air can work wonders with muzzy heads. Waking up at stupid o'clock & not being able to get back to sleep is awful & so tiring. I have often struggled with this. During a very stressful couple of years at work, I would wake at 3 am & lie there until the alarm went off at 6.30 & I'd have to get up & get ready for my 20 mile drive to work. By Thursday/Friday each week, I don't know how I managed to drive home, I was so shattered. I'd then sleep quite well on the Fri & Sat before resuming the insomnia again on Sunday night. I can sympathise as know from experience that this sleep pattern is absolutely exhausting. Hopefully things will improve for you once the move has happened - hope so anyway.
F x

foxgloves

Well, I have stuck to my '3-tasks only' intentions. I have sorted yesterday's clean laundry & ironed those items which required it, have been down the garden to pick french beans (a huge basketful.....they are clearly going to be the 'new courgettes') & have phoned the gas place to enquire if they still offer routine annual servicing as I did not receive my reminder letter this summer. Records were checked & a letter was sent as usual, so we can only assume it went astray in the post. By lucky hap, they had just had a cancellation so were able to offer me a servicing appointment tomorrow morning. Excellent! I have budgeted the money for this & as it had not increased in price for joint service of stove (the one they fitted during lockdown when we had all the chimney work as part of our house refurbishment) & also our boiler, I shan't have to via any additional funds from our House & Garden Savings Pot.
It's a mellow end-of-summer day here today - not sunny, but warm enough to sit out on my reading bench with my book & crochet. I also found a September GH mag to which I treated myself from my Personal Spends the other week & forgot about, so as Mr F says he's making lunch & we are treating ourselves to a pizza tonight, I am truly a woman of leisure for the rest of the day. 
Sending you all a virtual bundle of french beans......(in lieu of being able to offload some of the real thing)
F x

milann

Loving the crochet blankets. I’ve also been making one - I’m up to 25 squares   😀 I’ve been teaching my U3A craft group (they’re all at various levels from never having picked up a hook to having forgotten how to 😵‍💫😳😂😂) anyway the request has been to make a granny square…..will see what happens 🤞😂😂

foxgloves

@milann I finished the 2nd cat blanket last night - so that's one for Ash now as well as Soot. I still have some leftover stash dk yarn left so have started a 3rd one to go up on the landing to replace a neon orange fleece which they sometimes like to sleep on. The colour of it nearly fries my eyeballs every time I walk past it, so I thought a crocheted replacement would be much nicer. This one will be one big square, changing colour for each round. It is just at the size of a large granny square atm, but will soon grow.
f x

foxgloves

Hello Wednesday Pence Wranglers,
Well, Mr F has gone back to work today so it is a very quiet house, what with us both having plenty to say for ourselves. A gently productive day on the whole. Money saving positives:
*Gas engineer came to do the boiler & stove servicing. Paid the invoice straight away as had allocated the money when I set September's budget. It cost £1 less than I had budgeted so I credited this dizzyingly colossal sum back to the buffer zone in my Money Book.
*Defrosted & poached the assorted fish/trimmings I boxed up when I divvied up the last fish box order as am making fish pie tonight. I am intending to make sufficient to feed us tomorrow as well. Remembered to hard boil the egg when Mr F was cooking eggs yesterday rather than waste gas waiting till today.
*Dealt with the huge basket of french beans I picked yesterday. Divvied up into some to serve with the fish pie today & tomorrow, the required amounts Mr F will need for 2 new recipes he is keen to try at the weekend (we have been looking for new recipes which use green beans) & blanched the rest, which made another 2 bags for the freezer.
*Defrosted a portion of soup for Mr F's work lunch tomorrow....not only do we badly need freezer space, we have also run out of lidded containers.
*Sampled the poached pears I bottled last September to see if they had kept successfully. They had! They tasted fine, which is good to know, though I don't know if I will bottle any of this year's pear crop as we will  probably have a manageable amount once I've made chutney & similar stuff.
*Labelled the jars of tomatoes I bottled on Sunday & stored them away in the pantry.
*Today's garden pickings: A few pears & another bunch of grapes.
*Did post-BH weekend budget updates. We treated ourselves to a takeaway pizza last night, which we really enjoyed. I was happy to subsidize, but not pay all the cost from our September Budget buffer zone, so the rest has been paid from our Personal Spends. 
*Entered a competition.
*Pinged my sis & sis-in-law for t-shirt sizes for nephews & B-in-Ls. Have seen a few good ones online but do not want the faff of guessing sizes then having to change them after Christmas.
*We have started knocking together a September master meal plan from which we chose next week's meals, so I still need to do the grocery shopping list this afternoon - that's my next job while the potatoes are boiling for making the pie.
*On the subject of groceries, Mr F noticed a £6 off a £40 spend voucher in his wallet was due to expire today. He decided to nip up to the Sains*'s near his work & spend it on 2 big boxes of Persian queen & the beasticles' favourite cat biscuits. He got nectar member price on the biscuits too, so paid a good price. He also received another voucher. We haven't shopped there much recently as we don't have a branch in our town so it involves a drive elsewhere, so I think this has been picked up on their system & he is being tempted back.
*Will crochet a bit more of the 3rd cat blanket tonight - that's the one which is going on our landing to replace a neon orange horror.
OK, that's my achievements for the day....off to write that shopping list now & progress the fish pie.
F x

milann

My ds does a lovely dish….he adapted a recipe from an on line one, but no idea where from. Green beans, coconut and tamarind. Not sure if you’ve tried anything like that but a lovely accompaniment to curry. 

foxgloves

@Milann - Thanks. Yes, I have done a spicy bean recipe before & it did make a nice side dish. The two Mr F fancied trying & we have put on the meal plan for this weekend are a green bean macaroni cheese & a chicken curry with green beans. They look nice so it will be interesting to see if they also taste good. I also make a Hairy Biker curry which contains french beans & a sausage casserole which I have been making for years & is very autumnal as it is cooked in cider.
F

starnac

Ooh I didn't know you could bottle pears. I'm new to having a glut of produce as I've always just grown in pots in the tiny yard we had, but now I have a garden and am starting to have more than we can eat. Thank you

foxgloves said:

*Sampled the poached pears I bottled last September to see if they had kept successfully. They had! They tasted fine, which is good to know, though I don't know if I will bottle any of this year's pear crop as we will  probably have a manageable amount once I've made chutney & similar stuff.

foxgloves

@starnac - Ah, welcome to the world of garden gluts! I hadn't tried bottling until last year when I was encouraged to have a go by @Suffolk_lass. I tried apple sauce, tomatoes & pears, which I poached with a bit of sugar, lemon juice & cinnamon. I have previously frozen these poached pears, but it was good to discover that the bottled ones worked too. The tomatoes were also successful, which is why I bottled some more last Sunday. The apple sauce didn't work. It had an odd flavour when I opened & tried it. However, as @Suffolk_lass said, I did keep it for a year before opening it, so eating it much earlier may well have made a difference. I love dried pears, but have not yet succumbed to buying a dehydrator. I did try making dried apple rings in my oven years ago & while they came out well, they didn't keep. They were mouldy within a week even in an airtight container. 
F

foxgloves

Hello Sunbeams!
Glorious late summer day here. Enough clouds to take the heat off, but sufficient sunshine to enjoy the warmth & sit out with a coffee.
A few positives today....& while many of my daily money saving positives are small, we all know how much they add up. It's mostly being in that right anti-waste, anti-frittering organised head space which produces long term results, isn't it?
*Cleared front garden border. No room in garden waste wheelie, absolutely rammed. It's collection day today so I cut down a large buddleja intending to put it in the bin once it had been emptied as bin lorry was due any minute. When they came, they saw my big heap of buddleja & came onto the courtyard to take it. I thanked them very much & said how kind that was & the chap said "Well you pay for that bin, you don't want to fill it up as soon as we've emptied it do you?". Very true....although I did almost half-fill it by the time I'd finished. Can really feel what a good bending & stretching session I've had. Planted out a couple of trays of pansies & violas for some early autumn colour.
*Glad tidings on the pet insurance front. We've never claimed from this provider. Our previous dear old cat had a policy with them but never needed it & we all know that one never really knows how 'good' an insurer is until one needs to make a claim. Anyway, they are going to pay out £276-63 & having looked at this figure, it is clear that they are paying out in full for Ash's vet treatment, apart from the £99 excess as stated in the policy. It should apparently be in our account within 5 days, so I will transfer it back to the Meow Fund when it lands.
*Did a small amount of financial admin.
*Cashed out my August PA earnings at £46.62. There is £0.75 still outstanding, but that can start me off for September.
*Garden pickings - not yet done today, but I can see that it will be courgettes, grapes & pears.
*Freezer space - or rather lack thereof - now critical. Defrosted 2 portions of potato, courgette & cheddar soup, one for my lunch today & one for Mr F's packed lunch tomorrow. I'd intended to batch cook some Hairy Biker curry sauce today but can't realistically do this until there is more room.
*Planned a low-cost local-ish outing for this weekend which will most likely involve a free entry & a picnic, so only petrol to pay & cofffee....although might take our big flask.
*One of my library wish list books arrived - the latest Kathy Reichs novel - so will start that today. I do still buy books, but not nearly as many as I used to back in the Spendy Era.
*Cat blanket 3 is growing & that pile of stash yarn is decreasing. I can close all the drawers properly on my yarn cabinet now!
*A zero effort meal tonight, as cooked sufficient fish pie last night to feed us for two days. Beans already prepped & in fridge rtg. I might just see if there are a few carrots in the carrot trough but that is very low effort - food metres again.
I noticed that by late morning, I'd had THREE scam sales posts on my FB feed, claiming to be a Wilk*'s huge 90% off online clearance sale. Despite many comments warning that these are fake posts & that scammers just want you to pay for goods you will never receive because they don't exist, it is clear that some people are falling for it as there were also comments saying "will I get my money back?". Wherever there is bad news, there are always crooks, spivs & carpet baggers waiting in the wings to take advantage of the situation, whether it's big companies price-gouging whilst they can 'hide' it in the backdrop of high & rapid food inflation, or online scammers like these using a sad much-publicised story like Wilk*'s demise to con people out of their money. I think the old adage that "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is" holds good with these scams though......I would certainly be querying claims of 90% off a sofa, as am a regular Wilk*'s customer & have certainly never seen any furniture in the shop, other than the occasional garden chair. It really is worth engaging the brain cells before entering those credit card details.
Wishing everyone a peaceful productive day,
F x