Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

Thanks everyone for your kind thoughts. I know I could have a flare-up at any time & end up in Emergency, so the best thing is to try & control anything over which I do have a scrap of agency & take things a day at a time. 
@EssexHebridean - That's good advice, but don't worry about me going down any expensive quasi-medical routes - I'm too sensible, & these days, also too tight with our money! I do make occasional herbal remedies, tisanes, etc. Just had a "3-ginger tea"...although that one was from a box of bought tea bags.

Well, I haven't felt great today - not the condition I was seen for yesterday, but I think linked to the stress of the hospital visit & what was discussed. I awoke at 4.45 am with a headache, got up to find some paracetamol, but they didn't really do much, & surprisingly, neither did coffee & breakfast. Decided to go about my day as normal to see if it would shift. Nope! Luckily an afternoon dose of out of date cold & flu capsules has made inroads, plus a soothing ginger tea as mentioned. Despite feeling grotty, I have had a productive day of kitchen witchery. It's been quite calming looking out on the garden, already so redolent of autumn, with the abundance of red whitebeam berries, windfall pears being enjoyed by the birds & the leaves already starting to fall.
*Did a major triage of the tomatoes, as had a fridge salad drawer full of them, plus a big bowl on the dresser & a pyramid of them in the conservatory in various stages of ripening. Sorted out the ripest ones & bottled another 6kg. The freezers are chocka so it struck me that rather than try & cram in lots of portions of the usual soups, I can make them as & when needed from the bottled ones, which are just roughly chopped tomatoes after all, no water added. So that's another 8 big jars cooling under their towel on the worktop ready to be squeezed into the pantry.
*Garden pickings: French beans & basil.
*Three containers of leftovers plus a courgette plus the last of our red spring onions will be used up in tonight's tamale pie. I'm also wokking some sliced courgettes & leftover tuscan kale for side-veg. 
*Did next week's meal plans together over coffee first thing & pinged the grocery list to Mr F who has really taken to calling into the supermarket on way past on Thursday nights.
*Baked a loaf of bread & some country biscuits (from the Crank's book)
*A nice big bowl of assorted veg scraps added to the worm composter. Compost really IS something for nothing, isn't it?
*Two baths from 1 fill of hot water first thing. As I woke the household so early in search of painkillers, we thought we may as well get up! Need to watch that we haven't become lax with energy use since our monthly DD was reduced, as the heating will be on all too soon & the figures on the smart metre will be looking very different. 
*Knit a bit more birthday sock......haven't done that yet, but it's imminent.
F x

PennysIntoPounds

That's a very productive day, especially impressive when not feeling on good form. What a lovely view from your kitchen window 😊
I don't know if you have the chain of stores Savers where you are but I often stock up on the allowed two packets of painkillers from there, and get Mr PIP to too, over a few days to get bargainous stocks in for The Period Period 

Sun_Addict

Well done for rolling your sleeves up and cracking on with things despite not feeling at your best. To be honest that’s the way I cope with anything rubbish and I find it does help. 

foxgloves

@PennysIntoPounds - Thanks. Yes, we do have that shop & I stock up our medicine box there too. It's well worth doing. 
F 

kayannie

foxgloves said:

@PennysIntoPounds - Thanks. Yes, we do have that shop & I stock up our medicine box there too. It's well worth doing. 
F 

And their granulated sugar is only 89p a bag! KA

EssexHebridean

Good tip on the sugar in S@vers - F@rmf00ds is also a decent source usually at that price.

Not at all surprised the stress and anxiety manifested itself in a feeling grotty day - all that adrenaline has to exit somehow doesn’t it. I frequently find that stress really upsets my digestion, without being too specific on the subject - again the effects of adrenaline I think. You did have a productive day in spite of it though - what a lot achieved! 

foxgloves

@Sun_Addict - Yes, I am not one to sit around moping making myself feel worse. I'm a bad enough over-thinker as it is, so keeping busy is the best route for me to see my way through stressful times & bad news.

@kayannie - I'd never think to look in there for food, but that's a good price on sugar, especially at preserving time of year, so I must remember that. Thanks.

@EssexHebridean - Yes, I'm sure it was the stress of the actual day, followed by trying to process the bits of information I was hoping not to hear. I also find there's a distinct link between anxiety brain state & my digestive system - but I think there actually physically is a link in the form of the vagus nerve, so we are probably not too unusual. I have only been in the Farm-name shop you mention once in my life. It was a city centre branch many years ago. I needed to buy a box of eggs. There wasn't much info on the box & as I have only bought free-range eggs for years, I asked the assistant "Are these eggs free-range?" She asked me to repeat the question, then informed me how much they cost.....as though I had asked. "Are these eggs FREE?". I said I knew how much they cost, but wanted to know if they are from free-range hens. She said, "They're eggs in the box. They're from hens". I started to explain what free-range eggs are but gave up halfway & said I'd call at S*ins*'s when I got off the bus! So I never went in again, & that habit has stayed with me. I just never think to visit, even though I receive their junk mail leaflets through the door quite regularly detailing various offers.
F

foxgloves

Hello Sunbeams,
Feeling brighter today. No headache & a decent night's sleep. Mr F is off today & has a few days of leave, so we have been thinking about a few things we might get done over the next week or so. The weather forecast doesn't look good - showers every day except today, so we won't get the outdoor outings we'd planned, but we can still do other stuff. Anyway, today's small wins:
*Cleaned the whole house between us using the usual minimal products. Mr F opted for bathroom cleaning & all of the vacuuming, so I tackled the kitchen & bins. I do like a clean house for the weekend.
*Dated the jars of tomatoes I bottled yesterday & popped then away in the pantry. No shelf-space left in there whatsoever, so they have had to go on the floor. Pantry re-organisation imminent though (she said hopefully, as if spare shelves will suddenly be magicked into existence by helpful gnomes).
*Mr F popped out to pick up the cat food he forgot last night at the supermarket. This week's groceries came in below target which leaves a decent amount for the final grocery shop of my September budget cycle.
*Did my regular mid-month budget updates. Nothing untoward. We have £23-11 less than I was expecting. What a silly amount! I couldn't see any immediate cause for this, looking back at my original budget. The £3-11 is neither here nor there, but I expect the £20 is an accounting error, where I think I've accounted for something correctly, but haven't or have just neglected to note a spend in the Money Book. It may well come to light on my next Big Budget Day. If not, we can accommodate £23-11.....but it still annoyed me!
*Entered a competition.
*Did 2 loads of laundry to take advantage of what looks like the only reliable dry sunny day for a while. All pegged out & Mr F's row of bright funky hand-knitted socks is getting a lot of interest from a beautiful red admiral butterfly. Simple things!
*Did a survey.
*Sorted out a bag of yarn given to me by my friend. I was going to crochet a couple more cat blankets for spares, but I think some of the colours, particularly a lime green, a coppery shade & purple, would actually be nice crocheted into bigger granny squares to go towards a warm sofa throw for TV-watching in the evenings. I would need to buy some yarn as I progressed, but nothing very expensive as it would need to be easily washable, so I'd be able to pick that up from the trusty 'shop which rhymes with toys'.
*Started making a pile of clean summer clothes for packing away in their storage bag, as will be getting autumn & winter stuff out all too soon. Seasonal compromise today - light flowery summer dress with chunky black tights & my ancient purple DMs.
*Mr F found a portion of Epic Man Stew in the freezer, defrosted it for lunch & ate it with a portion of french beans from the fridge.....so that was 1 container less in our rammed freezer & another which now no longer needs to go in. A small result (& free lunch).
*Today's garden pickings: The last few grapes, which have been delicious this year. Variety "Black Hamburg" - not at all difficult to grow. Vine has been in the same enormous pot in our unheated greenhouse for 20 years & hasn't even been re-potted, just top-dressed each year.
Well, that's my lot for today, I am going to enjoy the last of the sunshine down on my reading bench.
Love F x

foxgloves

P.S I forgot another budget-helping win......Remember we were discussing car tyres a while back? Mr F has booked our car in for 2 new front tyres, which means he qualifies for a % discount for a multiple purchase. So he booked it online, then received an automatic ping with an additional discount code, so with that applied, it has brought the original price down a good bit. 
F

PennysIntoPounds

Glad you're feeling brighter, great discount news. Apparently 'gothic floral' is very in for this Autumn/Winter so your outfit wasn't a compromise, you were channelling your inate fashionista 😁
A London news story today was that Burberry, as sponsors of London Fashion Week, have had the roundels at Bond Street tube covered with 'Burberry Street'. An awful lot of tourists, visitors, and Londoners who are in the natural habit of knowing when to get off through an occasional subconscious glance, are extremely confused and cross!