Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

themadvix

I am totally with you about potting tubs up - there's always more to it than the gentle pottering depicted on GW! Satisfying when done, but never feels entirely representative of all the effort that has gone in.

Enjoy your relaxing evening in front of the TV - you deserve it!

joedenise

joedenise said:

foxgloves said:

@joedenise - Yes, you are right. If I was planning to divide ours, I'd be looking to do it about now. They die back over winter then the crowns start budding again end of Jan/Feb. So if you split it now & plant it, I'm thinking it should have time to settle in before Spring. 
Good luck! (& a sharp spade!)
F

Thank you.  I'll ask her to split it sooner rather than later and get into the ground.  I know we shouldn't pull too much the first year but hoping we can at least have a pudding or two from it next year!  Will see how it goes.

I'm doing well with the 30 different fruits and vegetables a week - I'm up to 29.25 already.  There will definitely be some more spices in the morning as I'm making kedgeree for breakfast which I think will take me up to the 30.  I've also still got some different fruits which I haven't had in the last couple of days since I started counting.

After a full week I have managed 44 different plant based foods.  Have exceeded my expectations!  Doubt I'd be able to do this every week though.

foxgloves

@joedenise - 44 different plant foods sounds very good to me. You know I grow a fair bit & cook everything from scratch, but I didn't come anywhere near that the week I tried it. By the end of the week, I had to make deliberate choices to eat a different fruit or use a different salad ingredient to achieve my 30. I think I will earmark this in my diary as a positive thing to do in the new year.

@themadvix - Yes, agree! Mr Montague D ambles into his charming vintage potting shed & turns out 2 or 3 pretty shallow bulb saucers in no time. Me? Well, I am puffing & blowing, trying to drag the containers to the compost sack or vice versa, trotting up & down the garden to deal with stuff I've removed, spent compost, etc, & am fair knackered by the end of the job! I was certainly feeling stiff last night. However, this morning, when we were locking up the front door to go into town, I did think it was worth it, to see all that lovely autumn colour & swept courtyard, & for a low spend too.
F

foxgloves

Greetings Friday Frugalistas,
So soggy here today, that we almost changed our plans & knocked town on the head. However, this would have meant going tomorrow instead, when we had planned to have an outing, so we decided to go for it & I'm glad we did. Today's budget-helping positives:
*Only 2 hours of parking paid for. Even with a longish list, we knew the relentless rain would make us hurry around, & it did.
*Sorted a gift box & 18th birthday card using my 25% off voucher. Also bought a planned gift for youngest nephew as only 2 left in the shop. Another present crossed off the list, which is spreading the cost nicely.
*Got the outstanding grocery items for this week - I think the eco-refill shop will put us over target for this week, but a lot of cleaning stuff ran out simultaneously & we would have to buy it at some point this month. Also took containers with us for refills of seasalt, cinnamon sticks, nuts & glace cherries as they do tend to work out a little cheaper without the packaging, which is of course included in supermarket prices. As I remembered to buy bramleys on the market, I will be able to get on with making mincemeat next week. 
*Mr F refused to buy deodorant in the mainstream pharmacist/toiletry chain. He says it has doubled in price & they can whistle. He tried a discount chain which tbh, we rarely go into as tend to use 'Rhymes with Ravers' when looking for bargains, but he was pleased to find the deodorants he likes for less than half the price he'd just refused to pay. Everything has gone up (& still is) for sure, but it goes to show it's still worth shopping around. There was a £5-off offer on my make-up brand, so I made use of that for the 2 items on my list.
*Restrained in the charity bookshop. Plenty of great stuff I could have bought, but I do have quite a lot of stuff in my reading pile & can manage without a top-up until next month as have my library wish-list on the go too.
*Mixed up a sourdough first thing - it's on 2nd proving, to go into the oven in an hour or so.
*Am determined to do an Annoying Job today - cutting up an old bath sheet to make free cleaning cloths. This towel has been sitting waiting all week & as I deliberately left it out where I'd see it, it is now annoying me. I will do it as soon as I sign out. 
*Popped into building society while in town to get our regular saver passbook updated. I also enquired about the current interest rate on my ISA. It had increased, but not as much as our other savings accounts so I asked if there was a better one into which I could move our money. There is. It pays a decent wodge more interest & allows 4 withdrawals per year. I don't think we would use these, but even if something untoward happened & we did, the interest rate for that year would only fall back to the amount we are currently getting, so it sounded like a no-brainer to us. Intend to arrange an appt next week to action this - it apparently only takes about 20 mins. Out of interest, I ran the figures through an online compound interest calculator. I based it on us leaving the lump sum in place for 10 years with the current interest rate & no additional deposits, then the one on the new account, & the difference was just under £6k of extra interest earned. The 10 years is really neither here nor there, but I just wanted to have some form of concrete comparison. Also, we may decide to add to it again. Atm, we are making regular payments to our other accounts, as that is our current plan. Anyway, we will action getting the funds transferred to the new account. I know interest rates go up & down - my comparison was just for illustrative purposes to confirm to myself we have made the right choice.
*Did a couple of surveys. Quite slow on these today. Will try to step it up next week. 
Still raining. I think there has only been maybe 40 mins today when it hasn't been raining. Cats on wet playtime. They will be bonkers tonight. I chucked a small handful of cat biscuits outside to try & encourage Soot to get some fresh air. he dived out, raced around doing 10 seconds of speed-eating, then ran straight in again. Not what I had in mind in terms of his fresh air, well-being & exercise!
F x

PennysIntoPounds

Good for Mr F saying the shop could go whistle, no-one will ever convince my cynical self that huge companies don't rub their hands with glee every time there's an excuse to whack up prices in the face of human suffering
And well done past you for annoying present you into dealing with the towel 😁
Great work on the savings switch, an additional 6k after ten years is not to be sniffed at!

Sun_Addict

I’ve switched to the Lid! dupe of my roll on deodorant and so far so good. Mr SA also likes their dupes of his deodorant and shower gel at a fraction of the price. 

Hasn’t the weather been awful today 🌧️ 

badmemory

I've switched to the Aldi version of mine.  The only difference seems to be the price.  Of course my requirements are very limited, no smell & work for more than 5 minutes.  So far 24 hours seems quite likely.

Cheery_Daff

Sounds like a good, productive day, well done! 😊 Love the annoying job too - I have an old cotton nightshirt sitting around to cut up for cleaning rags - I might follow your good example!

milann

Sounds like a productive day 👍

foxgloves

Hello Sunbeams - Thanks for your comments, which I always enjoy reading. Pleasant weekend - haven't done anything exciting, but thought I'd better put a post on to show I have been keeping the money saving faith. Small budget-helping positives:
*Lovely autumn walk yesterday -used member's annual passes to get in. Coffee & biscuits from Personal Spends, so budget-neutral. Managed to forage a handful of ripe chestnuts.
*Autumn garden tasks progressing - all provide free fitness & fresh air. Last of potted-up geraniums brought into conservatory. There was a frost overnight  - a long time since we have woken up to the sound of car windscreen-scraping! Unearthed more ceramic pot holders from depth of shed. Glad I didn't buy those Swedish Emporium ones. I do like them. but £15 each if I remember rightly & I'd need about 8. I can make do with what I have for now. They will all be going back outside again late Spring after all. Will check charity shops too. Also chopped up bolted salad plants for wormery & compost bins, gathered up netting, canes, cane toppers, clips, labels & packed away in the shed for next year. Watered greenhouse babies. Mr F mowed the lawn which looks like a quagmire but needs a good airing.
*Todays garden pickings: Sage & the last of the outdoor salad leaves.
*Asked Mr F to move an unopened compost sack to the greenhouse so that it doesn't get waterlogged over winter.
*Peeled & zizzed up the last but one of our homegrown tomatoes as they badly needed using. Just about one tin's worth so Mr F is using them in tonight's sausage & cider casserole.
*Made tomorrow's packed lunch & breakfast.
*Put a blanket on our bed until I get the summer duvet changed for the warmer one.
*Synchronised our diaries over breakfast so that we know what we are doing this week. Being organised always saves us money one way or another.
Well, yesterday on October 14th, the heating finally kicked in! I got out of bed & had a peep through the curtains to check that the promised dry day had dawned for our outing & the radiator was on. We turn the thermostat to our winter settings on Oct 1st, so having the first 2 weeks of Oct without having to pay for any heating has obviously been a positive thing in terms of energy costs. Our manual meter readings raised a bill from the Cephalopods. It is for a 6-week period rather than the usual month, but our credit balance had grown a little more, meaning that we are going into the winter billing with over £600 credit. I will be monitoring this, as our monthly DD was reduced to £79 at the end of September - much less than we had been paying (£119, then £176, followed by £120), but of course we don't have the £400 government credit this year, so our aim is to keep ourselves warm enough, but not to take our eye off the ball & start wasting energy. Then I should get an idea of how we are going to progress with the lower DD. 
Right, well that is a long post about nothing much. Am going to do a survey then sit in a sunny window to read my book......might also see who I have to snog around here to get a coffee (hey, @Sun_Addict - not too many more weeks until we are watching that again, lol!)
F x