Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

Well, here I am chatting to you instead of doing the ironing. Only have about 4 garments waiting, but have been putting it off all day.
Hello Wednesday Pence-Wranglers,
Again my plans to put in an hour in the garden cutting back the borders has been thwarted by weather. We were expecting about 0 degrees overnight, but it obviously fell lower than that as we woke to an icy world. Despite some lovely sunshine today, the garden even now at 3.30pm, hasn't thawed at all, but is still crispy white. Anyway, the day has not been wasted, as I have baked the Christmas Cake. House smelling nicely 'cakey' as it cools slowly before I remove it from the tin for foiling.
Small money-saving positives? Not many, but better than nothing:
*No money spent today.
*Made tomorrow's work porridge pot & packed lunch.
*Defrosted a leftover garlic bread baguette & pesto for tonight's cheap & easy pasta.
*Selected next week's meals from December's master meal plan & tweaked to make it work better alongside other stuff we have going on in the week.
*Wrote grocery shopping list (v small)
*Wrote a list for town on Friday as intend to buy all our Christmas meat except the turkey from our market butcher & freeze it. Have a £10 loyalty voucher due from butcher, so have been trying to work out the best way to use it. Also need to remember to post 2 parcels & buy a couple of bits for the festive baking I intend to do earlier & get it into the freezer. List defo required!
*Did a few surveys, including feedback for one of the products I am currently testing. I wonder if I can reach another Ips*s cash-out before Christmas? It would be nice as could add it to the Leisure/Entertainment Pot to build it a bit before the later opera season we are wanting to book for. PA December earnings up to £14-60, which I am motivated by, as it is only 6th, so will keep on with those. Am thinking yarn money for that waterfall cardi pattern!
But that's it for money saving today. I am going to get my halo shining by tackling that ridiculously small amount of ironing so that I don't have to keep looking at it.
Thank goodness it has been dry today, so both cats have been outside to run off some steam. They have been absolute loop-the-loops this last couple of days. Soot starts mountaineering when he is hungry (so 24/7 then) or bored & Ash has been replacing outdoor exploration with carpet vandalism. Soot sat on Mr F's shoes this morning, so he couldn't put them on while Ash was hiding in the linen cupboard ready to jump out & attack his socks. I spent ages hunting for my specs last night only to find that Ash was sitting on them - can't have been comfortable as they weren't in their case, but he took a dim view of me removing them. have found a Christmas decoration on the floor (in one piece) & also a book from quite a high book shelf. And the racing around, pouncing on each other, fighting, blocking doorways so the other one can't get in or out, starting the elevenses biscuit pester at 10 minutes past breakfast time.....I could go on, but am aware that I am only further delaying the damned ironing.
Wishing everyone a cosy peaceful evening. Must admit I have been stingy today & moved the thermostat to a warmer place to limit the amount of times the boiler triggers on. Am starting to feel chilly now though, so will move it back for the evening.
F x

Makingabobor2

It really was unexpectedly icy this morning, wasn't it?  DH got his motorbike gear on, got out to the end of road and decided to come back and go to work in the car, which he never does unless the roads are really bad. He said it was very slippery looking out there at 7.20am. Roll on spring is all I can say

milann

The ice has been terrible here too…..I haven’t ventured out as I watched cars going around the corner with their back wheels  skidding and decided I didn’t want that to be me. The Christmas cake will have to wait another day or so in this house as I’d planned on going out for a couple of missing ingredients. I bet your house smells lovely and Christmassy with the cake cooking. Must be one of my favourite smells.

PennysIntoPounds

Aw bless the cabin fevered cats and their shenanigans. So annoying when cats do it and you miss it so much when they pass on.
If you have any places that need dusting, put a particularly tempting to knock off item there and watch them work their furry magic 😁

EssexHebridean

Yes, we woke to a hard frost yesterday morning too when it hadn't been forecast to be that cold - I think a lot of folk were taken by surprise by it including I suspect our local council as the gritters clearly hadn't been out... 

You have also reminded me to nudge MrEH about making our cake - that's a weekend job I think. 

foxgloves

Hello Friday Frugalistas,
Thanks for your comments & contributions, which I always read when I visit my MSE diary each day.
Quite a useful day in terms of money saving activity, but pretty much all in the area of the festive food list. Called into town this morning to visit local butcher, with the aim of buying all our Christmas meat items (except the turkey which is on order elsewhere). After a bit of judicious adding up, we paid for our basket, had our loyalty card stamped, then as that completed it, I asked if we could use it straight away & that was fine. A full card can be exchanged for £10's worth of any meat, so we chose items for one of the brunches we are hosting in the run-up. There were a lot of good offers on today. Mr F wanted to choose a couple of steaks for his birthday meal, & they were on 'Buy one, get one free', so a pack has been frozen for feeding us in January. Ditto when we came to choose a sausagemeat sleeve, it was in a '2 for £5, mix & match deal' so we chose a pack of 4 chicken quarters to go with it. Since we first started debt-busting all those years ago, I have really used 'paying foods/ingredients forward' as a budget-stretching tool, whether it is taking advantage of a good offer which will provide at least another future meal, or just a little thing, such as only using half a large pepper & slicing the rest for freezing so it's an ingredient I won't need to buy again next time I want to make a stir-fry. Well, we got this big bag of meat home & decided to divide it up into the portions/occasions required prior to freezing. Mr F put some Christmas music on the CD player & it felt quite festive. There was more bacon in the packs we bought than we will need for making devils on horseback, barding the turkey, etc, so a few foil parcels of that has been frozen too. I am thinking that with my annual 'rubber turkey' production line on 27th (Official Turkey-Dismantling Day at Foxgloves Manor!) & 28th plus the spare stuff from today & various other leftovers, I would like to be dropping January's food budget by at least £50. 
Oh, I was going to tell you about when Mr F spotted a Giant Pig in Blanket. We had just paid, then bagged our purchases & free meat, & were about to walk away, when Mr F spotted that the butcher was selling giant pigs in blankets. And I MEAN giant. Think the size of a generous swiss roll (not one of those little skinny supermarket ones). Well, he nearly got the red mist & was wanting to buy one for his Christmas dinner. No way did we need it, so I got around this by saying of course he could have that if he preferred, but I'd ask the butcher to swap it for the 2 packs little cocktail chipolata size pigs in blankets we'd already bought. I could tell the grey cells had started to process some rough calculations, but he obviously decided he'd rather stick with what we'd got, so managed successfully to WALK AWAY from purchasing a giant pig in a blanket!! 
Other budget-helping stuff today: Updated the grocery budget as we are doing well with the festive food shopping & I am keeping a close eye on the figures as we go along. Also did a decent amount of surveys, including the feedback surveys for a product test. Mr F got up earlier than me this morning, made a coffee & decided to see if there was anything doing on PA where he struck lucky with a £10 survey. I haven't been as lucky as that, but am within touching distance of another Ips*s cash-out already. Oh, & I entered a couple of competitions too. And as we only needed to visit the market & butcher this morning, we parked for free on a supermarket car park, which meant I could avail myself of a free wee too, as I was on that side of town......20p saved, oh yes, lol!
Not my cooking night, so I am going to read as I really do want to finish my book this weekend so I can start one which I ordered from the library & has just arrived.
Stay cosy m'dears, looks like another stormy old day tomorrow. 
F x

marionmgcars

I’m with Mr FG,  I would have found it hard to walk away -  now I’ll be looking for one 🤣🤣

PennysIntoPounds

Excellent save on the loo, very few things make me more cross than having to pay to use public toilets. I'm always half tempted to widdle on the floor outside as a protest

Baileys_Babe

I surprised Mr F didn't propose having the giant pig in blanket as the meat element of a roast dinner either pre or post Christmas 😆

kayannie

You would have saved even more if you were shopping in our county town. I was there this week & noticed the TIC charges 50p to use their loo! KA