Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

@Makingabobor2 - Well that is very kind of you to say.....but not how I see myself at all!
F x

themadvix

Your jars look lovely Foxgloves! I really should work on my presentation of gifts...

foxgloves

@themadvix - Thanks m'dear! I'm not sure they'd bear close inspection. I just rubber-band the fabric covers on to hold them in place before tying on a twine bow. I have often cut the covers from small not-much-good-for-anything-else pieces of Christmas gift wrap with pinking shears, but I acquired several ready cut-out fabric ones earlier this year, plus a pack of nice paper ones, so thought I'd save myself a job by using those. One year, I went proper la-did-dah fancypants & used natural raffia with tiny alder cones & sparkle, but although they looked lovely, it was frankly a lot of faff for something which is destined for the bin on opening, so I've scaled it back to vaguely festive & pretty enough to stand on a dresser should anyone want to do so.
F

Blackcats

The jars look really pretty.
glad you sorted out the budget anomaly - your forensic accounting is very admirable.  I'm getting better but I can still be a bit casual with a few £'s here or there.  Using my ch-ase account is really helping though, I have my saving/spending pots and it's easy to move exact amounts from place to place.

marionmgcars

Oh I love the gifts you have made.  I’d be delighted to receive something like that.  I’ve got some chilli jam I made that will be gifted, so off to look through my stash and find some pretty material. X

PennysIntoPounds

The pots are so lovely, what a nice thing to be able to gift

Mr PIPs cat (they're ours when they're cute and his when being a pain 😁) who was refusing to eat his tinned food got a tin when he was insisting he hadn't ever been fed ever, and happily scoffed it thinking he'd got one over on us, then ate a bit of the next one, then wised up and will only eat blimmin expensive sachets again, but do keep any scorned food in case you can occasionally sneak it in!

Moorviews

Everything looked so pretty and festive there. It’s worth the effort to dress gifts nicely as it can make receiving them feel extra special. I save all bits of ribbon and pretty scraps for wrapping. I am hoping not to use gift wrap paper at all this year. Our area won’t take it for recycling even if it isn’t shiny or glittery. It will be fabric or brown paper with something from my ribbon stash. Like you, I was brought up making things by hand, although this was probably because we didn’t have much money. I will be having a go with your origami stars idea as that sounds great and might even be doable with fabric. I hope you have a lovely weekend 😊

foxgloves

Hello, & thanks for your nice comments about my festive jars. @moorviews - Yes, do have a go at origami stars. They are not difficult once you suss how to do the bit where you gather up the bits between the points & gently squash them downwards & suddenly you can see it is actually going to turn into a star. I had to YouTube how to make them. Still haven't had a go at the modular origami wreath from my charity shop Christmas craft book yet. 
Not much to report today, but have been keeping the faith:
*Mr F popped out to get the desired brand of cat pouches (eye-roll.....Yes, @PennysIntoPounds - your tale is so typical of cats, is it not? And what were our two tucking into as soon as Mr F returned with Persian Queen delicacies? The spurned brand! The 'Oh dear this again, maybe we might be able to get half of it down without actually gagging' pouch variety, the little devils!) Anyway, he remembered to take our £1 extra dividend voucher so that has now been added to our total, which along with Nectar points will be funding at least part of our Christmas groceries.
*Bought supermarket crisps. This is because we will be travelling at lunch time on Sun & if we take sarnies & crisps, we won't be calling in & buying expensive meal-deals at the upmarket garage forecourt we pass on the way home which is exactly what we did last time having convinced ourselves we wouldn't be hungry. Yeah, right.....
*Baked a loaf - had hoped to leave this for a day or two but had forgotten I need breadcrumbs for something I'm baking to take to family meet-up.
*Did quite a lot of surveys. Am only 24 points from cash-out on Ips*s & PA Nov earnings have now broken £30. Plenty more days to go until the end of the month, so I will keep at it.
*Did have my gardening morning & thoroughly enjoyed it. Cleared the remaining border in our front courtyard & filled a few gaps with home grown & self-seeded stock from my cold frame. Also swerved a garden centre spend - the winter jasmine cuttings I saved before the builders arrived last year to re-do the front have really taken off & badly needed support. I was going through all the options in my head for buying on our next garden centre visit, when I suddenly had a word with myself & realised a suitable item could easily be shopped from home, from the pile of just such items I have stacked in the shed. Fetched the most suitable & it has worked perfectly. Even allowing for triffid-like growth rate of winter jasmine, I reckon that now I have got the support in place & whippy growth tied in, this arrangement should last for a couple of years. That's got to be a decent saving on avoiding some sort of decorative metal jobber, so I was pleased with that. Need very much to be putting money INTO our savings pots, not taking it out, atm!
OK, well that's me done for today. Mr F's cooking night & he is making enough chilli to feed us tonight & Sunday night.
He does a lovely chilli & I have requested mine with homemade jacket wedges.
Off to read my book now & 'Shetland' to watch later.
F x

Blackcats

Cats and their fussy food ways.  Mine is loyal to his gourmet sachet seafood in gravy variety which means we have to make a special trip to a different supermarket for it.  We tried him on the Persian queen variety and at first he seemed to enjoy it but after about 4 pouches he couldn't bring himself to eat another morsel.  He has downshifted to the lid lee version of dreamies though.  He wolfs them down so quickly that he probably can't even taste them.

joedenise

Checking my YNAB agains my bank statement this afternoon and, yes you guessed, I was out!  Worse than yours at £100!  Ended up going back to September's statement and it was actually from that month!  I thought I'd checked that thoroughly but apparently not!  Still at least it's all sorted now.  It was just a silly accounting error on my part but glad I found it.