Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

EssexHebridean

I plan to use a mini greenhouse for anything that needs a bit of protection too - it will be placed in a sheltered area and up against the wall of the office so it will get some cover from that hopefully.  We used to have no issues with getting geraniums (all in pots) to survive at the flat as a rule - they used to sit on the floor of the balcony tucked in behind the wall and that was always fine - then we had a couple of nights of really hard frost last winter and that got the lot of them, sadly. We didn't replace for this year as obviously we knew we were moving - they will be a definite on my list for next year though! 

foxgloves

@Suffolk_lass - Yes, I know that poem well & like it very much. I think I will start on it early, lol. Oh, & just to add that our sleepers (raised beds) are also rotten in places, although we have had them for 20 years. I've told Mr F that he can shore them up & they will have to do for at least another couple. They still serve their purpose if we don't plant too near the back,
@2Scratters - Well done on the extra money-stretching. 

Thanks for all the comments about over-wintering geraniums. I know it is possible further south......my sis over-winters hers successfully, but she is in London & has a sheltered little courtyard garden. We are to the North of the East Mids & have north-facing garden. I lose them even when undercover in the greenhouse (unheated) so bringing them indoors is my only option. Wrapping them in layers of bubblewrap to try & get them to survive the greenhouse would be a faff, because as @Suffolk_lass quite rightly says, they do need at least some occasional winter watering. 
F

Elisheba

milann said:

It’s pot luck for my geraniums in my little mini greenhouse but Dh despises the smell of them in the house - he’s usually very easy going but really can’t stand the smell - so my geraniums have to take a chance. I lost them all last year but the 2 previous winters they survived. They are tucked up nicely along with my tender fuchsias so fingers crossed for a mild winter. They didn’t flower very well this year and I put it down to the rubbish compost. I won’t be buying that brand again.

I think it might be one of those things some people can small and some people can't.  My Mum despises the smell of geraniums, but I don't really smell anything off them at all.

foxgloves

Hi Wednesday Pence-Wranglers,
What a thoroughly wet, soggy day. Any vague hopes I might get the bulbs planted today were soon washed away. Have managed a couple of good garden days though.....picked the very last of the courgettes & composted the plants, cleared & dug over the herb bed & various other autumn tasks. Also picked another bunch of sage - now tied & hung for drying, other pickings: blackberries & the very last big red chilli. Stewed more of our pears & blackberries yesterday - big bowl in fridge for desserts - also baked a fruit sponge (pears & blackberries again, but versatile recipe as can use most fruits).
Today's budget-helping positives:
*Well, I swallowed a frog first thing by ringing HMRC, so we'll start with that. The first part of my problem is being dealt with the manual way with a letter, which I expect to receive within 10 days. The 2nd part has been sent to the relevant department to deal with, but their backlog is apparently 60 weeks!!!! I said. 'But that's 15 months, & therefore outrageous!' Adviser agreed & said some depts are absolutely overwhelmed & backed up over a year. There was a note on my file that I had raised a complaint, but nobody had just sent me a two-line email to acknowledge it. I think they must be chronically understaffed. On the good side (are you sitting down?) - I got through straight away. There was no phone queue. I commented on this being a VERY pleasant surprise & he said that this week, there have been a few times between 8 & 9 am when there have been no or very few people in the phone queue. I am counting this as a positive because I did find out the info I require & it is going to be confirmed in writing.
*Phoned the Cephalopods to complain that my email had not been answered despite sending it 10 days ago. Big apologies from adviser. They too are inundated (since the price changes). He was able to confirm that our lack of billing IS due to their tech no longer being able to communicate with our smart meter. Action will be taken by us (manual meter readings) & them (passing us to tech dept to see if it can be sorted remotely or whether an engineer needs to visit. 
*Small royalties payment received from one of my Dad's compositions.
*Sorted out pile of invoices on my desk for the presents I ordered recently. Presents Pot is lower than I would like (but viable) so I wanted to decide the best funds to charge these to. Decided to pay one from October's budget buffer zone, as I allowed a bit extra this time, 4 from the royalties payment & the rest from the Presents Pot. Ordered a book for Mr F as Waterpebbles had reduced the price by about £4 since I last looked.
*Did a couple of surveys - October PA earnings currently at £24-19, so I will keep at it. Every little bit helps the budget.
*Wrote a new library wishlist.
*Use-it-up meal tonight - spicy lamb pilaf - always a good final outing for edible odds & ends.
*Knitted more of current birthday present socks.
*Started a new book from my pile of treasures from the charity bookshop.
*Have started thinking about a new Annoying Jobs List, as I can see quite a few of the b*ggers starting to pile up.
Cheers for now,
F x

PennysIntoPounds

Blimey, well done you on swallowing that frog *and* getting through quickly on the HMRC phone line. It's a good thing I'm sitting down!

Great work on all the productive doings, I'm envious of the charity shop pile 😊

How lovely that your Dad's work is still occasionally chipping in to your pots, what a nice occasional reminder of a loved one that is x

Suffolk_lass

foxgloves said:

@Suffolk_lass - Yes, I know that poem well & like it very much. I think I will start on it early, lol. Oh, & just to add that our sleepers (raised beds) are also rotten in places, although we have had them for 20 years. I've told Mr F that he can shore them up & they will have to do for at least another couple. They still serve their purpose if we don't plant too near the back,

F

If we can salvage any sleepers, we will. I have suggested cutting their depth down but apparently it is not worth it. One other, significant problem is they are too wide. He is 6'4" and can reach the middle. I am not, and can't. Currently I can if I stand one foot on a sleeper top, lift my back leg like a ballerina (except I am more in the heffalump build), then I can plunge a border fork in the middle and hold it for balance, while trying to extract weeds without snapping their roots with the other hand. I am 65 now, and while fit (except the ankle) and flexible, it feels ever more precarious. To set us up for our next age, I would rather spend some money and do the lifting and construction while we are both fit and strong enough to do it ourselves, or we will end up paying someone else to do it for us. While moving the strawberries this week, I followed a strand of creeping wood sorrel and it was in the top sleeper wall (this one is 4 high, narrow and we often sit on it for a cuppa), and as I gently pulled it, the wall of the sleeper disintegrated They are unlined and untreated and this particular bed has suffered with huge ant colonies over the years. 

With the new fruit cage being different dimensions and wanting to be in the same space as two veg beds, now is the time. A sort of "spend to save" project.

Blackcats

I like accumulating prolific earnings too and I've upped my efforts since going part time and now having finished work.    Some of the surveys are quite thought provoking, others less so!  I find it helps me to focus on the value of money too by reminding me that actually earning £1 from a survey takes time and effort.  Having been a 9 to 5, fixed wage earner for years I've never really measured my time/effort in pounds, shillings and pence.  I'm up to £14 this month but am happy with that as I had my week's holiday at the start of the month.  I reckon a few of us from these boards do the same survey at times. 

Suffolk_lass

Blackcats said:

I like accumulating prolific earnings too and I've upped my efforts since going part time and now having finished work.    Some of the surveys are quite thought provoking, others less so!  I find it helps me to focus on the value of money too by reminding me that actually earning £1 from a survey takes time and effort.  Having been a 9 to 5, fixed wage earner for years I've never really measured my time/effort in pounds, shillings and pence.  I'm up to £14 this month but am happy with that as I had my week's holiday at the start of the month.  I reckon a few of us from these boards do the same survey at times. 

I wondered this. I did some Ipsy surveys in the cold spring months, to see how I got on but I get rejected from many, and I wondered if there were a group of us with similar savvier than most approaches who were taking the allocation of those surveys. I stopped after reaching 2000 points and recently added the £20 of big river tokens to our spending pot. I've always got more interesting things to do (not even keeping up with all the diaries I used to on here!). 

foxgloves

@PennysIntoPounds - Yes, Dad would be pleased to know that his music is still selling, especially as I usually use my share of the royalties (split with my sister) for classical music concert tickets. It's gone towards Christmas presents this time - it was just too perfect amount for a specific invoice which had been sitting on my desk in the 'to do' pile!
@Suffolk_lass - Our old railway sleepers had been treated with the usual gunky tar stuff in their previous life. It has probably helped them last a bit longer than untreated, but at first, it would start to seep out in places, when the weather was hot - thankfully not near the veg.

Re Ips*s - Yes, I agree. They evict me from a lot of surveys too. I don't think they can use the profiling info they hold for me at all, as it if is so obvious (after 2 or 3 questions) that I am not the right demographic, why bother sending me the survey link? It wastes my time & doesn't exactly generate goodwill. I am also tired of receiving survey invitations from them by email, getting onto it promptly & getting a message saying the survey is unavailable......which again, begs the question, well why clog up my in-box with non-existent surveys then? 
F

foxgloves

Hello Diary Readers,
Oh, I am so tired, I could drop! It's been one of those days in which jobs I thought I'd have finished by lunchtime actually took me pretty much all day. I've been nicely productive & enjoyed a chat with a neighbour while I was out working on the front courtyard, but I will be doing sweet sod all for the rest of the day. Anyway, the budget-helping positives were:
*A very low-cost meal from our monthly master plan - some of the gigantes plakis I cooked the other week when I was busy using up the end of our tomato glut, served with......
*A wedge of rosemary & onion focaccia bread which I made this morning. Have frozen some to serve with Sunday's sausage casserole & the rest has gone into a tin for a free lunch.
*Cleaned the kitchen using usual minimal products & washable cloths. Mr F is off work today & tomorrow so he volunteered for Waitbl00m & A*di first thing with the grocery shopping list, plus cleaning the bathroom & vacuuming the entire house.
*Wrote a list for town tomorrow & got the bottles & containers ready for refilling at the eco shop.
*Planted up containers. The 3 by the front door were planted with tete-a-tete mini-daffs, pansies, violas & cyclamen. A 4th just with violas & the rest of the pansies went in the main front bed. As usual, this didn't sound like a particularly long task when I was planning it, but of course first, the containers need emptying, hanging baskets need to come down & the contents dealt with.....so that was 5 more geraniums to prune, pot up & take down to the greenhouse, then the old compost was spread around various shrubs, then all the pots, trays & compost to pack away, courtyard to sweep, watering-in to do. Quick bite of lunch, then into the back garden to plant up 3 ceramic tubs with 2 types of tulips - one bag of them a freebie with a 'Buy 2, choose a 3rd free; offer. Finally tools, trugs, kneeler, etc, to pack away in the shed. It always feels like it should be a much speedier job than it is. 7 containers & bit of planting at the front of a bed......that's all, but it always takes me way longer than I plan for & I never seem to remember this from year to year! 
*Mr F has been in make-do & mend mode this afternoon. New batteries in the remote control (which I nearly hurled at the wall yesterday) was all that pesky gizmo required, the light which fell out of the linen cupboard has been replaced, summer stuff such as the fan has been decluttered back up to the loft & the ridiculously stiff bedroom door handle has been cured.
*Read meters manually & submitted to the Cephalopods, which should raise a bill while they are sorting out their lack of communications with our smart meter.
*Will do some sock knitting tonight & flop in front of the TV. I can already feel myself stiffening up from all today's bending, stretching & lifting. 
Honestly, what an old crock!
F x