Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

Makingabobor2

rtandon27 said:

PIP - that was hilarious but sadly accurate!
My favorite is getting a text to say it was delivered 30 seconds before they knock on the door, drop it on the step and run!

Oh yes indeed. the say its been delivered and you then have to go and investigate where it actually is.  I have a sign on the front door now, saying please come round the back....we never use our front door and opening it just lets the cold air into the lounge. I also put on my sign "please do not throw parcel over the gate.  There is one courier who always did that. I came home once and couldn't get in the garden gate....lots of pushing and shoving and it turned out he had lobbed a package straight over and it was blocking the gate....it was a box of 4 x 5L white vinegar. Now surely even the densest of delivery drivers would know that it was heavy and would stop the gate opening??!  

foxgloves

They can be infuriating, can't they? The experience that sticks in my mind is a few years ago when I was waiting in for a delivery. There was a loud knock on the front door & as I happened to be about 6 or 7 steps away, I opened it promptly.........& was thus amazed to see the driver was just heading off our driveway with my parcel still in his hand! I called out "Hey, where are you going with that?" He turned round looking rather sheepish & said he thought there was no-one in. I suggested that he might have actually tried waiting a few seconds for me to get to the door to determine this, rather than psychic divination!
One of the big carriers frequently hurls my friend's parcels up their alleyway. Having seen the Ken Loach film, I do sympathise with the business set-up & time pressures these people often endure, but there are still limits to my patience.
F

Blackcats

Going back to the ear piercing conversations from a few pages ago - my mum also had a strong aversion to anything that might be deemed to be "common".  This included pierced ears and ankle bracelets which were very, very common apparently.  So common in fact that they might indicate a fallen woman 🙀.  Not being common was also indicated by talking properly - no slang or dropping of h's or t's.  Whenever I hear "Another Brick in the Wall' I also hear my mum's outraged voice muttering about the children being encouraged to sing in such common accents and double negatives - "we don't need no edukayshun"

I had a text this morning saying my parcel would be delivered between 7am and 10pm.  There was a knock on the door a few minutes ago and by the time I'd walked from the kitchen to the front door the driver was disappearing down the front drive.  He did turn round and lug the huge, heavy parcel back to the house muttering that he thought there was no-one home.  Car on the drive, lights on, radio on, no reply after 2 seconds - could only mean no-one was home.

foxgloves

@Blackcats - My Mum was just the same. So much stuff was deemed 'common' - pierced ears, ankle chains (yes, there was that connection between those & the 'oldest profession in the world', wasn't there? I don't know why!), skirts with slits up the sides, clackers, etchasketch (eh? I never did figure that one, except that Mum was good at art), street fashion (except for pork pie shoes, which hit that strange combination of being both fashionable AND sensible!), bubble gum, clothes from C&A, honestly, some of them were such random things! 

Re your delivery driver. I do have genuine sympathy for the conditions & pressure they endure, but honestly, that is taking the p*ss!
F

Blackcats

Oh goodness I'd forgotten that I was never allowed etch a sketch either.  Surely even with the highest possible bar for avoiding all things common an etch a sketch couldn't qualify as even a teeniest bit common?

foxgloves

Hello Frugal Diary Friends,
I haven't been posting much this past couple of days as didn't feel I'd done much of note, but it's time for a round-up, just to show I have been keeping the money saving faith. ON the budget-assisting front, I've been generally busy with the following:
*Various admin including updating my log of monthly energy costs now that the Cephalopds have managed to restore connection with our smart meter, thus removing the need for me to spend time chasing them up for a resolution. Also booked the cattery for next year's holiday, sorted out our Christmas milkman order, have stayed on top of budget updates, etc.
*Manorial duties  - Keeping Foxgloves Manor running smoothly by continuing to meal plan, did the last grocery shop of this budget cycle online as Mr F suddenly acquired another voucher for £8 off a £50 spend, & I think that is a discount worth having. He also made sure he picked up the free cat food pouch he was given a voucher for at Waitbl00m. Cleaned bathroom & kitchen today using minimal products & washable cloths as usual. Wrote town list for tomorrow, as I can't see myself being able to get into town again until the end of next week. From this Sunday, it will be free parking at weekends until the end of December to try & boost local shoppers.
*Have kept on at the surveys & have now broken my minimum monthly target of £40 of PA earnings. Also been checking into Ips*s & done a couple of 'TasteNation'.
*Continued festive prep - Wrapped Mr F's birthday presents, ok that's not Christmas, but it is the week before, so I am still counting it, started writing Christmas letters to go in with a few cards - just 2 letters written so far, but it's a start. Shall probably write another 3, ordered a sheet of 2nd class Christmas stamps. The final Christmas present sock is progressing.
*Annoying jobs - Have done two. One was something which required mending & had been sitting there for months with me walking past it every day. Time taken to mend = 3 mins. Cost of repair = nil. The other took about half an hour but I felt a lot more organised afterwards, especially as I found a document I thought I had safely filed away (I have now).
This morning by 8.00, I was up to my elbows in pumpkin! My friend who has an allotment offered me a pumpkin last time we visited. She said she won't bother to eat them & I knew I'd get a decent amount of food from the one she offered me. I have made 4 portions of the Indian butternut squash curry recipe we like (from the BBC Good Food Healthy Slow Cooker book) but obviously subbed the butternut with pumpkin & I chunked up the rest, lobbed it in a big roasting tray with plenty of garlic, rosemary/seasoning then roasted it for about 45 mins before making it into soup. I had a portion for my lunch & froze the remaining 5 containers. I selected a few seeds for drying as we will sow some next year, but the majority of the seeds were washed, dried, tumbled in oil & a chilli spice mix & roasted until crispy. I hadn't made these for ages. Very moreish. Even the pumpkin rind will go in the worm composter or onto the compost heap, so everything has been used. The amount of pumpkins wasted every October always makes me feel sad. It must be the only crop that is grown ostensibly just to be thrown away. 
Anyway, it isn't my cooking night. Mr F has defrosted BBQ chicken thighs & is making chunky jacket wedges so that is sounding like a truly zero-effort evening ahead for me. I think I will do my piano practice & aim to get a bit further with my book, as I don't seem to have progressed as far with it as I'd have liked. 
Hope you have all survived the week & looking forward to the weekend,
Love F x

foxgloves

@Blackcats - No, I could never get to the bottom of the objections re etchasketch, despite repeated efforts (mostly me repeatedly asking 'But why?' ad infinitum. Mum was good at art. She could paint & draw so she probably thought this device offered little in terms of what she regarded as real creativity. I'm sure she was right, but it was only a toy at the end of the day. I got around the clackers ban by swapping some of my marbles with the younger lad next door. He was much more interested in those than in the clackers he had been bought, so I clacked away happily with those until I realised it was a pretty pointless & actually quite stultifying activity, when I knocked at his door & asked to swap back. 
F

badmemory

Just to hark back to ankle chains - they are mentioned in the bible as a sign of a woman's occupation shall we say.

foxgloves

Ah, that is interesting, @badmemory. I hadn't heard that before, despite my churchgoing upbringing. I quite like ankle jewellery, actually
F

Blackcats

@badmemory that's very interesting about the Bible and ankle chains - that would certainly explain my mum's views on them!  The dislike of etch a sketch will probably remain a mystery though 😁