Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

@ladyholly - Oh yes, the annual statements which say "Interest paid this year = Nil" are a really positive thing. I love to see those!
@Moorviews - I don't really use my phone for surveys (apart from the occasional Ips*s). I don't have a tablet so I use my laptop. I don't do many survey sites, but find PA the most interesting & that's where the majority of my monthly survey income comes from. I tend to have my laptop on at least at some point every day for doing my emails, financials, admin, etc, so I just have PA open on another tab so I can see new surveys as they appear. 
@badmemory - Storecards were just awful. I had a couple of those back in the Spendy Years. I can remember one for a clothes store & the balance just never went down. Of course I only paid the minimum & when I was moaning about it to Mr F shortly after we'd got together (but a long time before the LBM), he looked at my statement & said that it was no wonder, as the interest rate was over 60%! I decided that as it was not even a very big amount, that I'd pay it off & cut the card up, which I did actually do (!!) but I remember borrowing from my evil Flexiloan to make the payment. Even now I can remember taking out that storecard. There was an opening offer (wasn't there always?) where one got 20% off for signing up for the card. I intended to take the discount then cut up the card, but of course, I didn't as I had no financial discipline (or sense). They were a dreadful product.
F

foxgloves

Evening Campers!
I haven't been nearly as productive today as I'd intended. Workmen this morning, then Mr F unexpectedly home in the middle of the day. He arrived at work to find that due to staff sickness he would have to work a very late shift tonight - one which involves a much later start at work, which he obviously didn't know he would need, so rather than be out of the house for around 16 hours, he decided to split up his day. Having to drive back there meant we ate really early, so that also shortened the day. Anyway, enough rambling & onto the bits of positive budget stuff:
*Mr F's decision to split his shift by coming home in the middle of the day meant that we could eat our normal planned meal rather than him having to go & buy a main meal (he always takes something from the freezer when he knows he has this long shift) - as he is 'emergency staffing', his return mileage should be covered by work.
*The tree & hedge work & gutter clearing cost £110 less than I had budgeted which was a nice surprise. I will decide which Pot/s will be getting a boost from that unexpected gain.
*Covered chilli seedlings with bottle cloches & moved then to a sunny windowsill. They will get too spindly if left in the heated propagator. Aubergine seedlings are up now. Love growing food.
*Use-it-up efforts - Used a last chunk of vegetable shortening leftover from Christmas baking in some pastry for a caramelised onion quiche for dinner. Served it with a selection of veg including 2 further use-it-ups from the fridge.
*Made a few jam tarts with the surplus pastry. 
*Sorted this week's clean laundry & did a miniscule amount of ironing. 
*Made tomorrow's packed lunch & porridge pot.
*Did a couple of surveys. 
Well, I am Queen of the Remote Control tonight, so I think I will see if there is anything I fancy watching on the Flicks of Net. If not, not bother, as I have my book to finish.
Now that the hedges etc look all neat & tidy, I could really fancy a gardening day tomorrow, but the weather forecast looks dire, so maybe that task I need to do sorting out all those herb bunches really might stand a chance of getting done. I'll see.
F x

PennysIntoPounds

Congratulations on the works being done! Tree and hedge and gutter is a reassuring big task to have dealt with.
And what a nice surprise to have £110 left over, do keep us updated as to the pot allocation 😁

Moorviews

Thank you for the information on surveys. Mr MV went up the ladder and made sure our gutters were clear yesterday, ready for this rain that started coming through in the night. It seems to be an ongoing task these days. 

EssexHebridean

Good news on the budgetary saving on the works - let's be honest, it's not all that often that happens is it now! I'm very glad that we don't seem to have too many issues with falling leaves landing in the garden/on the roof, as our top gutters on the back of the house aren't particularly accessible due to the extension. I'm sure we'll have to bite the bullet and get them cleared at some stage, but it's definitely going to be expensive when it's needed! 

Good that you were able to stick to the existing plans on food in spite of Mr F's changes in work - it's small things like that which really help things along isn't it. 

foxgloves

@PennysIntoPounds - Thanks. & lol...only on here could people be interested in other people's savings pots additions! 
@Moorviews - We have been getting water ingress above the top of the landing window frame again. It seems to be from the guttering becoming blocked which means it is then unable to cope with a downpour & overtops, causing water to seep continually down the wall & into any teensy little fissure it finds. The chap who does the bits of our garden work which require ladders (& more of a head for heights than that possessed by either Mr F & myself) said that it was the same blockage as last time. Visible from the ground, actually, a clump of think couch grass & other greenery growing at the exact point where our guttering joins next door's then turns a sharp 90 degree angle. Perfect blockage! So the water can't get into a downpipe that way & has to go one-way. General amounts of gunk further along also slows progress & so the gutters fill up rather than contributing any drainage activity. I had suspected that the cause of the abundant greenery clump was birds dropping seeds, but he says it's then compounded by bird poo, which also contains seeds & built-in fertiliser for ensuring they get off to a very good start in a damp gutter! Anyway, just been to check landing window following all-day rain so far today & there has just been a very small amount of ingress, nothing like the usual levels, so an improvement.
@EssexHebridean - Yes, it defo helps the budget to have a workable meal plan. Back in the day, Mr F would have gone to the supermarket nearest his work & bought something in (plus treats to compensate for having to work an unexpected very long shift) & I would probably have sent out for a pizza. ££s saved!
F

foxgloves

Hello Wednesday Pence-Wranglers,
What a wet miserable day! Today's excursions have been limited to the bins & the shed to fetch the litter tray indoors, as Soot said no way was he venturing forth in this! So much for charging up my fitness band with the vague thoughts of going for a walk!
Anyway, I shall tidy away my moans into a notional drawstring moan-bag & instead tell you about today's small budget-helping positives:
*A no-spend day. And for Mr F too, as I know he is too short-staffed at work to go anywhere near the shops.
*Dinner in the slow cooker - a favourite cheap & cheerful recipe which uses 600g fresh homegrown tomatoes during summer, but a jar of my home bottled ones today. Smoky chipotle black bean chilli. I just serve it in tortilla wraps with some grated cheese on top so that they go nicely squidgy when rolled up. 
*Made a crumble - well almost, as shall combine base & topping later. 2 containers out of the freezer, as I have used a portion of stewed pears & blackberries, the container of blackberries I didn't know we had & 3 apples from the fruit basket. Will provide dessert for a couple of days.
*Selected next week's meals from the February master meal plan. Heavily prioritising emptying out freezer now - 10 containers will come out as next week's meals progress.
*Wrote grocery shopping list for Waitbl00m tomorrow. It's not a long list & the most costly items on it are loo roll & cat food, but we have a £1 off voucher for the former plus others for a couple of other items. Did I mention we tried a weekly grocery shop at another big supermarket in town a couple of weeks ago & we were surprised when we got to the till that there wasn't nearly as big a price differential as we were expecting. This obviously made a big impression on us, as we were still pontificating it when we got to the bye-pass!
*Did some minor budget updates. 
*Assessed best use of the £110 underspend from yesterday's gardening work. Decided to send £100 to the House & Garden Pot & keep £10 towards a nice little coffee shop visit this weekend to celebrate the work costing a fair bit less than my best guesstimate. I chose the House & Garden Pot because we will soon need to buy this year's compost/growbag supplies as well as a few bags of pebbles for the little refurb project we have planned around our pond. 
*Self cardiac-massage averted having spotted the credit card bill Mr F left on my desk, the balance of which was shockingly higher than usual - thankfully a quick perusal reassured me that we don't owe nearly that much as I have paid off the holiday cottage balance, but that credit won't appear until the next statement. Phew!! Why did much bigger credit card balances than this not spark the same reaction back in the Spendy Era? If only they had, we may only have had a Spendy Decade instead of an Era!
*Finally got around to taking down all the hanging bunches of herbs & crumbling them into jars. Pleasant task as was listening to the end of Washington Poe no. 4 in the series at the same time. Decided to take the opportunity to sort out the pantry herb & spice shelves, as they were rather muddled & I was starting not to be able to find things. All now organised alphabetically so no excuses at all for putting things on shopping lists which it later turns out we already have in stock. 
*Very few surveys although I see a couple have appeared on another tab, so I will see if I can do either of those. I'm not yet at my monthly target of £40 survey earnings, so must keep at it over the next week.
*Shall knit a bit more cardi tonight. I did measure it last night but still have plenty of this section to do as it is right across the back from one armhole to the other.
And that, m'dears, is my day. I notice that now it is pretty much too late to do anything, the sun has decided to make a bit of an effort, Typical!
Cheers,
F x

Sun_Addict

Well that looks a heck of a lot more organised than my spice drawer 😆

Makingabobor2

Ooh, I want a pantry like this

foxgloves

Did you see my pantry picture then, @Sun_Addict, as it seems to have vanished! 
Weird.
F