Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

Lol, that's funny about the B*rberry signage, @PennysIntoPounds. And I like 'gothic floral' as a fashion style & certainly have the boots for it but I suspect I'm nearer the hippyfied crone end of it. Who cares? 
F

foxgloves

Afternoon Saturday Savers,
Writing to you from our coffee bench. No cats - they are helping Mr F with decluttering the Man Cave.
Useful city centre trip for us this morning & pleased to say we pretty much remained on Planet Budget throughout:
*Took a list with us.
*Had breakfast out but paid from our Personal Spends, so budget-neutral.
*Went to the watery-sounding kitchen shop armed with my latest 20% off voucher to buy much needed new kitchen knives. Had to laugh, as a young assistant came to unlock the display cabinet for us & asked if we knew which ones we wanted & were we looking to replace anything in particular. Mr F said, "Well you know when the police have an amnesty & people can go & deposit random knives in a bin? Well that's our current knife collection!" Unlike the old Mr F who would have had to have the whole set, he had sorted through our eclectic collection of grot at home with me & we decided we needed just 3 new ones. We chose those & the asst informed us we'd get a 12% discount for buying 3. With the additional 20% off from my members voucher, we ended up with our bill reduced by over £21. Already thinking about buying some gifts with the next voucher which I hope arrives in October.
"Loyalty points (this time from a CC) struck again in Emm-n-ess when Mr F finally found the jeans he wanted in the right colour & shock horror, I actually found a nightdress I liked which wasn't festooned in cartoon characters, pink pig jelly sweets or slogans. Bought two! One for now & one to go in the emergency bag I'm putting together in case I have a flare-up which requires a hospital stay. £11 off from the vouchers anyway.
*Also treated myself to some B*dySh*p minis to put in the bag as I am a planner who likes to be prepared, but also thought it'd be nice if the worst comes to the worst to have some decent essentials with me.
*Intended to treat us both to a take-home lunch from lovely indie bakery but lengthy queue meant my ££ stayed in my purse.
*Exemplary behaviour from your ex-spendy friend in the marine condiment shop. Went in specifically to purchase black leggings seen on their website. Could not find. Asst went to check in the back & found a pair in navy (which I never wear - school PE knickers colour) & grey. By this time I was in the fitting room trying on a very nice £55 tunic. Tried the grey leggings, which fitted, but not keen on the colour. Then the asst came back as she had found a pair of black ones in the right size which had a tag saying '2 for £45'. A little flicker of Old Foxgloves clothes shops habits popped up as I briefly talked myself into buying the tunic (which I didn't need) & the grey leggings (which I didn't much like,) as well as the nice black ones. Thankfully the impulse died away as I knew that the Clothes Pot money would be much better saved for getting another black pair next time or online. Felt quite virtuous!
*Bought hard-to-find Christmas cake ingredient - now popped away in the pantry.
*Cleaned out & decluttered kitchen utensil drawer & removed lesser-used gadgets to the fish kettle for storage. Mr F thought my broken cherry stoner should go in the bin. I refused as I know I'll get a fab load of cherries for jam as soon as this happens, so he mended it for me instead. £8 gadget saved.
*Today's garden pickings: Blackberries
*A tasty egg-box & mushy pear fed to the wigglers - got to love free compost & worm tea for the garden.
Defo time to kick off my boots & read my book - a pbk from our excellent local charity bookshop. 
Peace & love,
F 

Makingabobor2

I just love reading your daily exploits. Its like a calming end to my day and reminds me of how I want to be living and I always pick up some tips from you. Glad you managed to find the things you needed. I must admit I hate shopping so much these days, but will have to go next week as I am in dire need of a couple of bits of clothes I can't buy online. 

Cheery_Daff

Excellent work there, and well done for keeping your head in the clothes shop! 😀 I confess I did have a little splurge today, but as the most expensive item was a £4 top from a charity shop (and I realise I was also mentally counting 'envelopes' as part of my splurge 🙄 I will not be beating myself up about it 😂)

Sun_Addict

Well done on resisting temptation 👏

I’d love to know how the cats got on with the decluttering 🤣

starnac

What a lovely day. Glad you found what you needed at a discounted rate and didn't succumb to any extras. 

Had to laugh at your hospital nightie. I was a child that was regularly in and out of hospital and my mum always had one good pair of pyjamas in a bag ready for me. It's a habit I've always kept up too even though hospital stays are no longer a regular occurrence. It was a shock to me when I met my husband that this is not something everyone does! 🤣

Sun_Addict

By contrast, when I was expecting my first child, I hadn’t even thought of the overnight bag I would need at some stage. The day I was taken into hospital I arrived clutching a bag of satsumas and a mascara 🤣

Humdinger1

Cheery_Daff said:

Excellent work there, and well done for keeping your head in the clothes shop! 😀 I confess I did have a little splurge today, but as the most expensive item was a £4 top from a charity shop (and I realise I was also mentally counting 'envelopes' as part of my splurge 🙄 I will not be beating myself up about it 😂)

Splurging on envelopes @Cheery_Daff ! Outrageous behaviour! Love Humdinger xx 

AnotherNewDay

@foxgloves how do you do your bottling and canning.....I may have imagined it but I think you mentioned re-using sauce jars with push-button lids and interested in how you sanitise and bottle with these?

foxgloves

Hi @AnotherNewDay,
I am not an experienced bottler as I only started last year, encouraged by @Suffolk_lass.  I am only bottling tomatoes. 
Yes, I use the tall glass jars saved over the years from mayonnaise. I only use the ones with lids that have an obvious 'button' or similar.
The method I use is to wash the jars & lids thoroughly in hot soapy water. Jars then into an oven tray & into oven at Gas 2 (later reduced) for sterilising. I then peel the tomatoes, remove any green bits from around calyx, roughly chop & put in preserving pan. I bring these to a simmer for 5 mins.
Using jam funnel, I fill the jars, adding a half teaspoon each of sugar, salt & lemon juice to each jar as I go. Jar tops wiped with clean cloth & lids put on. 
Then I use water bath method - large stockpot with a clean kitchen towel folded at the bottom as a 'trivet'. I stand the jars on that, tucking a couple of clean tea-towels around them so they are not touching..I then fill with hot water (hot jars need to go into.hot water, cold jars into cold water) ensuring jars are completely submerged. Slowly bring up the heat & boil for 45 mins.
Turn off heat & leave to cool a little. Then I ladle out sufficient water to enable me carefully to lift out the jars with an oven glove. I stand them on a wooden board covered with a towel to allow them to cool slowly. When touchable, I check the lids are all on tight & continue cooling..You should start hearing the lid 'buttons' depress during this period. When cool, check that all these have depressed. If not, do not store but use straight away as jar has not sealed properly.
The batch I did last September as an experiment kept perfectly well for the year BUT please note I am new to bottling tomatoes & while this method seems to work for me, it would be a good idea to consult more experienced people/preserving guides, etc, as there are risks if the food spoils..I inspect the bottled tomatoes on opening, smell them & if all seems well, I have a little taste & would not use them if they tasted at all 'wrong'. So far so good, but as I said, it's early days for me & bottling, whereasI have been making chutneys, jams, jellies, etc for years.
F