Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

Hello Thursday Frugalistas,
I don't where today has gone! I'd planned a task for this afternoon, but have decided I am not getting all the stuff out now, so it can wait until tomorrow. There have been some budget positives anyway, so here goes:
*Finished writing grocery shopping list & pinged it to Mr F who will pick it up on the way home from work...especially as he has vouchers, including a £3 off cat food. Also furnished him with this week's target spend as not a lot of wriggle room for the rest of this month. When I say that, I should add that I don't mean that we can't afford to spend extra money on groceries. We can. We could via the money from elsewhere, go lower into our monthly buffer zone or dip into various savings pots, but we don't want to do any of those things. It's no longer because we are prioritising paying off debt, as we no longer have any, but because we are finally making up for lost time by building up our savings. Same budgeting/money saving techniques but for a different, though very much allied goal. It does sometimes feel a bit weird being a member of a debt-free wannabe forum when I no longer owe anything to anyone, so I am just putting it out there that we are still engaged in our daily sensible behaviour to make up for past numpty spending to do the responsible thing & build our financial security. That was a ramble, wasn't it?
*Did a freezer inventory. I had lost touch with just exactly what we'd got in our freezers, so it was very useful. Plenty of useful stuff, including 12days' worth of main meals, 11 portions of various home made soups, 4 microwavable work lunch portions & lots of other things which will be ingredients for other meals. Mr F seemed pretty sure we'd used all the home made turkey stock (the best stock of the year) but I found 6 cartons. Also a carton of blackberries & I could have sworn I'd used the last of those in a crumble a good few months ago. Anyway, both freezers badly need defrosting so we are going to meal plan our way through as much of the above as possible to provide a short window of time for defrosting them before the next fish box arrives. Mr F has put his hand up for the defrosting. Yay to that, as all the ice scraping hurts my cronky hand joints!
*Made tomorrow's packed lunch & breakfast.
*Fed my sourdough jar ready for baking tomorrow.
*Effortless dinner tonight. The Chilean pork & beans I made last night in the slow cooker was lovely! Defo one to make again. It made 6 generous portions (Mr F has caveman appetite) so we are having it again tonight with the leftover focaccia & I've frozen the rest for a 'free' meal on another occasion.
*Did a few surveys. If I was less 'picky', I could do more, but there is a limit to how much techy faff I am prepared to do for the renumeration on offer.
*Sorted through my voucher wallet & got rid of out of date ones
*It is definitely warmer today, which is a money saver in itself. When I got up at 5.45am, the thermostat in our hall (a cold spot) was showing 17 deg, which is pretty good as the heating is off between 10pm & 6am. By around 3pm when I had a quick look at the smart monitor, we had only used £1-46 of gas. 
*Did my Mid-Month Budget Check-In. No nasty surprises. In fact I had a £16-53 surplus showing. I know where it came from. It's because I had updated Spreadsheet 1 (bills/DDs) with new amounts for 3 insurance policies, but hadn't twigged that the new payments start in March. This month, the providers just collected the previous amount. Any surplus is good - sent it across to the savings pots (Clothes Pot).
And that, m'dears, is my lot for today. It is approaching cat treat time, so I will soon be counting out little stinky pellets as the great meow-in begins.
Safe journey home to all the workers & enjoy your evenings, all.
F x

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foxgloves

@PennysIntoPounds - No, I didn't, despite it being a pub he really likes which has a very eclectic mix of beers, which can be bought in thirds so as to sample more varieties & also stocks my favourite gin. I quite miss pub quizzes, as we used to do pretty well even with just the two of us as a team. He is utterly convinced that there will be too much cheating because of people nipping in the loo with their phone. To be fair, we have been phoned in the past by people doing exactly that. On one occasion, Mr F answered a call - I heard him say 'Hello', then he said, "Well, if you don't know that, you don't deserve to win!" & hung up. I was also phoned a couple of times by the same group of quizzers but as I don't watch any TV soaps, I was unable to assist their in-pub cheating!
Mr F is most likely to challenge the quizmaster on music questions. He is a big muso - encyclopaedic -  & takes huge exception to quiz-setting errors such as playing an excerpt from a re-mix or later version of a song, & then refusing to take the correct answer as to which year it came out. Perhaps we will get back into it at some point. We could do with teaming up with someone who gives a damn about sport, as we have zero interest, plus geography, as ours is notoriously poor, unless UK-based.
F

EssexHebridean

I completely get your ramble about the grocery budget situation - we're in a broadly similar boat albeit not so far as I am concerned debt free while we have the mortgage - that as in a good cause though and is very worth it! It's about acknowledging privilege isn't it. I know in the past I've read blogs from people who are constantly coming across as being on the  breadline from their use of language around their lifestyle - and yet they clearly weren't, they were just making choices, the same as you, I and plenty of others on here. I think having enough self awareness to be clear that we know that is the situation is just a decent thing to do in a world where there are so many people who really don't have enough income - through no fault of their own - to meet their priority bills without a struggle. There - now I've added my own ramble to yours! 

Such a shame that cheating in pub quizzes seems to rampant these days - just one of the things that's enabled by everyone having 24/7 connectivity I suppose! MrEH is an extremely good pub quiz partner as his knowledge of history and world events is second to none, and he has an extremely good memory. I meanwhile can deal well with things like musical questions from the 80's, and random odd facts that can be helpful in any "general knowledge" round! 

PennysIntoPounds

foxgloves said:

@PennysIntoPounds - No, I didn't, despite it being a pub he really likes which has a very eclectic mix of beers, which can be bought in thirds so as to sample more varieties & also stocks my favourite gin. I quite miss pub quizzes, as we used to do pretty well even with just the two of us as a team. He is utterly convinced that there will be too much cheating because of people nipping in the loo with their phone. To be fair, we have been phoned in the past by people doing exactly that. On one occasion, Mr F answered a call - I heard him say 'Hello', then he said, "Well, if you don't know that, you don't deserve to win!" & hung up. I was also phoned a couple of times by the same group of quizzers but as I don't watch any TV soaps, I was unable to assist their in-pub cheating!
Mr F is most likely to challenge the quizmaster on music questions. He is a big muso - encyclopaedic -  & takes huge exception to quiz-setting errors such as playing an excerpt from a re-mix or later version of a song, & then refusing to take the correct answer as to which year it came out. Perhaps we will get back into it at some point. We could do with teaming up with someone who gives a damn about sport, as we have zero interest, plus geography, as ours is notoriously poor, unless UK-based.
F

That's a shame, they are great fun when run properly- and blood pressure raisingly infuriating when not! Maybe you could request the pub quiz evening out as part of your Christmas gift next year to tempt him back into trying them...

badmemory

I used to love when our two locals used to run quiz nights.  Sadly they no longer do & one of them seems to have been closed for a few months now.  It would appear that the signal is very bad at those which may have helped.

foxgloves

Afternoon Campers, & thanks for your comments. Yes, hopefully we might return to pub quizzing at some point. That's a good idea about next Christmas if the pub run it again, @PennysIntoPounds - though I could try a little twist & say I'll  treat him to one of their little paddleboard thingies of 3 different ales to try. 
@EssexHebridean - Yes, I agree. Even when we (as individuals & then as a couple) were both in the height of Spendy Badness, we were never in a position where we were unable to pay what we owed, as we were both on professional salaries - the LBM & subsequent huge attitude reform has been a lot to do with getting ourselves behaving more responsibly & stopping the rot which seemed to be growing when Mr F started tentatively suggesting another consolidation loan. I think that would have been our 4th (needless to say, each was to have been been our last......yeah, yeah....) & I do wonder whether we would eventually have got to a point where our outgoings were unsustainable in terms of surpassing our incomes. I certainly wouldn't have been able to go part-time, then take VR & have the household lifestyle change which came with that. Glad we never got to find out the hard way. I think it is the decent thing to do to acknowledge privilege. I know we are hugely fortunate in owning a home which is paid for & sufficient garden space to grow some food. For me, the change away from ridiculous levels of spending has become as much to do with greater environmental sustainability as anything - for all the silly 'greenwash' that is out there, it is still true that the most environmentally sustainable product is the one I don't buy. I don't really know how my life-long rather hippyfied values ever tied in with my old spendy lifestyle, & of course the truth is that they didn't. 
Re housing, I am not so insensitive not to appreciate that back when I bought my first little house, it was possible to get a 100% mortgage if one's job was considered a 'profession' although 95% was more usual. I was able to put up a £5000 deposit (inheritence - I had no savings) on a £35K house which doubled in price during the 8 years I was there, facilitating a move to our current property. Although I was priced out of the market during that crazy Thatcher-era gazumping-mad property boom, I am well aware that the housing market has been very much kinder to my cohort than to the current generation. The rotten state of the housing market is one of the things which most enrages me about this country!
Anyway, that was obviously today's ramble,....must get today's post on.
F x

foxgloves

Right, off with the Foxgloves ramble switch & on with today's small budget-helping positives:
*Did some financial 'tidying' tasks - transferred nephew 1's birthday money out of the Presents Pot & pinged it across to him, paid our holiday balance off Mr F's CC, updated grocery budget & checked how much Personal Spends money I have left. It looked lower than expected on the spreadsheet.....I had forgotten I swapped some of it for cash, which is still sitting unspent in my purse.
*Resource salvage - a very useful little paddibag which came in the post.
*Entered a competition.
*Did a few surveys.
*Accepted an invitation to join a product-testing panel. 
*Wrote a list for tomorrow's little city centre trippette & have made sure all relevant vouchers are in my bag.
*Dealt with new car insurance documents.
*Cleaned house using minimal products & washable cloths.
*Mixed up a sourdough - now proving.
Was very relieved to receive a hospital letter in the post this morning informing me that my follow-up CA125 blood test was normal - in fact the score had gone down by 4 points, so that was obviously good news. I have now been discharged by the Gynae & General Surgery/Bowel Consultants. I have been told how to regain access to the latter should my condition require it, but going forward, the key thing is to try & avoid flare-ups, which thankfully, I have so far managed to do. 
Right, that is me for the day....need to go & give the cats their lunch biscuits, make my lunch (NOT biscuits, sadly!) & sort out the bread dough into its basket.
Then I think I will make a cafetiere & enjoy an hour with my book.
Wishing everyone a pleasant frugal Friday,
F x

Makingabobor2

Goo news on your blood tests being ok and getting discharged from the consultant. 

Sun_Addict

That's very good news indeed from the hospital. Fingers crossed you manage to keep it under control. I've also paid our holiday balance off the cc, you could almost see the moths flying out of the sinking funds savings account 😆

Crazycatlady2

What do you mean you don't have cat biscuits for lunch? 🤣

Glad you had good news from hospital in your letter