Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

Hello Campers,
Very little to report today. I've cleaned the house, remembered to defrost some pesto for tonight's meal, made a sourdough (currently sitting in its basket proving) & done a couple of minor pieces of financial admin. I've done a few surveys, including one for a site I keep forgetting about, I only require about £7 from it before I can cash out £50. Am conscious that having set building up our Savings Pots as this year's financial priority, apart from the holiday pot, we are still 'taking out' rather than 'putting in'. House & Garden Pot is particularly low. So getting to that £50 survey cash out would be a nice little addition for one of the pots. Not many Ips*s around atm - I was getting a lot in the months leading up to Christmas, but now I seem to be chucked out (given 3 points for my trouble) for being the wrong demographic. It is a bit lazy of survey sites to keep doing this, as they have plenty of demographic info from me & shouldn't be sending me invitations to things where it's clear from the opening question that I am far from the required demographic. Never mind, every little helps. Quite a few PA surveys around, but all full by the time I got to them so I think there are probably a lot of people pouncing on them this afternoon as soon as they appear! (I wonder if the motivation is partly all those horrible January credit card bills.......of course in the Spendy Decades, they were something I knew all about, as well as the fact that February's bills were often even worse!)
I've finished writing the shopping list for town tomorrow, put out the containers ready for refill at the eco shop & added my own list of bits & pieces, mostly make-up, birthday cards & odds & ends from my Personal Spends. Mr F informs me that he has s free coffee to claim from 'C*sta' so we will probably go in there for a change & split the bill.
Cats being difficult with their food this week. We are convinced that cats can detect a difference between identical looking pouches of mush depending on which factory it has been made in. I looked into this online & although the recipes are apparently the same, factories in different parts of the world can source the ingredients from different suppliers so there is variation which of course the fussiest species on the planet can detect. Mr F says he is convinced this is why he sees customers in the pet food aisle in supermarkets checking boxes for product codes. Oh & to add to the fact that they clearly think we are feeding them gruel, we bought a different brand of biscuits last time we shopped as they were on offer. They are grudgingly crunching them but giving us looks to let us know in no uncertain times that eating these biscuits is only a degree above starvation as a preference. I am not throwing the biscuits away. They have been opened & I am not wasting money. I will meet them half way by cutting them with their preferred brand, but that's it. Bloody cats! Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em!
Time to fire up the coffee machine.
Peace,
F x

foxgloves

@QueenJess - This is the book, while I think of it - a useful charity shop find from several years ago.
F x

slm6002

Cats really are fussy.  If I buy biscuits that are only one shape they will not touch them.  If they are a variety of shapes in the pack they scoff them down.  Supermarket delivery guys with substitutes look at me oddly when I say sorry they are all one shape.  They also lick all the gravy or jelly off the wet food and don't eat the meat.  Wondering if we can just buy the bits they do eat.

Oh and surveys - I have been getting a lot over the past few days but before Christmas there were hardly any.  So far this month I'm up to £22.86.  Quite happy with that

QueenJess

Fab.  Thanks @foxgloves

themadvix

Sorry, I don’t recognise this form of feline - cats that don’t scoff down everything without tasting it?! We are very fortunate that we don’t have that problem (although an inability to differentiate between plastic bags and food is an issue for naughty ginger cat… and don’t mention the very expensive headphone-wire location incident).

That looks like a really useful book Foxgloves - will keep an eye out for it. I have made my own mixed spice but buy garam masala. I do only buy cumin seeds and coriander seeds rather than ground ones, simply to save space (and I admit, they only rarely get ground off in using them in a curry).

Blackcats

Another fussy cat living here.  Despite coming to us as a v young cat (16 weeks old) from a rescue centre he is v v fussy.  Will only eat ocean delicacies in gravy - in fact he licks the gravy and leaves most of the so called ocean delicacies in the bowl.  When things are desperate (e.g. dinner is a few minutes late) he will munch a few morsels of dried food.  The dried food is from republic of cats and has apparently been specially blended to help him achieve his health goals of healthy teeth and shiny coat 😻.  The box of dried food arrives addressed to black cat! 

kayannie

@foxgloves. You mentioning surveys reminded me about Ugov. I know you were having a problem with them several months ago. I have not had a survey from them for so long I can't remember. I have contacted them several times & either get no answer at all or what appears to be a computer generated reply which doesn't answer my question. I can't access my account either to see how much they owe me as the code never arrives. Grrr!!
KA

Jellytotts

Our fussy little felines can go off a box of food mid pouch it seems, I tend to buy 3 different brands at once and mix the pouches up so it's a pot luck as to what they get each meal time. Any uneaten food gets boxed up during the day and then deposited on the "fox and badger feeding tray" before bed.  Of course my cats are there like a shot to have a nosh on the manky stinky mixed food before the other animals get a look in.  The foxes will eat any leftovers without hesitation, the older badgers are fussier, the young ones will paddle in the tray before eating their fill.  Nothing gets wasted here! 

WinterWarrior

My cats will only eat the ‘blue biscuits’ (p*rina one) and only in salmon flavour. Nothing else will do. I have tried all other kinds and they always end up going out for the birds. The wet food is more painful as they’ll all have F*lix as good as in varying degrees of enthusiasm, but two like the little tins of pate best and one likes the plastic pyramid cartons of pate best. The other one enjoys ocean delicacies, but leaves the prawns 🙄. All our leftovers get thrown under the trees each morning for the birds and bad cats.
It seems we are all cat slaves here 😅

Sun_Addict

I’ve found my cats prefer Lid1 own brand to Fel!x. I’ve put out a bowl of each and both of them went to the Lid1 one. Both of them will eat the dog’s food if she leaves any behind but if I gave them dog food you can guarantee they wouldn’t touch it. The young cat is obsessed with cheese, she appears from nowhere whenever I get it out of the fridge.