Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

Afternoon Campers!
Not a great night, which resulted in me awaking with a silly headache from having my head at a funny angle. It's not by any means up there with the worst of headaches, but is a lingerer, so I have been a bit slower going about my day. Nevertheless, a few small budget-helping things:
*Postie brought me a package of knitting books from a kind friend & this helped very much make up for the fact that the other item of post was .........
*Our new water bill. Hmmmm. I intend to do aggregate 'new bill number-crunching' at some point, but can tell you that for Severn Trent, we will be paying an extra £9 per month this year. I had expected more, but would obviously have very much liked to see less. Is this how they do it? I mean, trail the need for our bills to increase for quite some time, so that we all talk ourselves up into expecting something truly huge, then when it does finally arrive, we think, "Oh, it's an extra £9 a month, could have been worse", when in fact that is quite a hefty amount. Input it onto Spreadsheet 1 (Regular bills/DDs) anyway. This means we will now be paying £68-77 a month (Apr-Nov). Is this the time to bite the bullet on trying a water meter for a year? It does seem like a lot of money.
*Did a couple of very minor budget updates. I like to have everything really straight in the run up to Big Budget Day which is next week.
*Shaped & baked the sourdough which I mixed up last night. It won't last long with Mr F in the house!
*Meal plan for tonight said 'Do something with pasta'. Decided to make tomato pasta sauce from the 'Organic Cafe' cookbook. Very easy nice thick sauce. Basically it is a chopped onion, garlic cloves, a decent sized carrot & a celery stick sauteed in oil with a bayleaf, then lob in a tin of tomatoes (I used a jar of our home grown bottled ones which also gave me a small leftover pot to go in the freezer to use next time I make a pizza), a spoonful of sugar, season & simmer for 30 mins before blitzing smooth (4 portions). I remember my sis used to make it when the neffs were tiny as it was a good way of smuggling extra veg into their food. Anyway, that's all made & just needs heating when the penne is ready - cheese already grated. I got ahead of myself in case the headache worsened.
*Write Easter cards & wrap present. I want particularly to post the parcel tomorrow as there is still plenty of time for it to get there 2nd class. Have got a box & paper in my recycled wrappings stash as well as a home made gift tag.
*Mr F was raring to go with doing the grocery shopping on his way home from work tonight. He's got into a routine with this. I have pinged him to suggest a couple of items on the list which can wait until next week, when crucially, we will be into April's budget cycle. As we stocked up earlier this month on Easter baking ingredients, eco-refill shop household stuff & some A*di items we like, the grocery budget is not exactly at the shiniest it has ever been. It's the final week, however, so I have told him I think it will be challenging to stay within the target amount, but it would be good if he could try not to go TOO much above it. He does have some vouchers off cat meat (feeding 2 beasticles defo takes a chunk out of the budget) & a couple of other items, so we will see how it goes.
Right, that is pretty much all I have been doing as these lingering headaches do make one feel just generally lacklustre, don't they? I am going to get on with my wrapping now.
Love to all,
F x

Sun_Addict

Well done on the productive day despite the headache. The pasta sauce sounds delicious. 

foxgloves

Thank, @Sun_Addict. It's a very easy recipe & makes a nice thick sauce. I hadn't really thought about the cost of it, but it must be pretty cheapo too. Hey. I notice the sun has decided to come out in our county now that it's too late to do anything! Typical! It started here with drizzle & swiftly moved to a most-of-the-day wazz-down. Hoping for better tomorrow.
F

Sun_Addict

That’s really weird as it’s been dry here for most of the day. Just a bit of drizzle now and then. Got the washing dry anyway. 

Blackcats

going back a few pages and the conversation about "new money" for various public services.  i worked for the NHS and we were always hearing announcements about being given "new money" which mostly covered the deficits of insufficient budgeted money and even more cleverly we were always announcing x-thousand new nurses or doctors whereas infact the counting mechanism was just changed.  we also never counted the nurses and doctors who were leaving to offset against the "new" staff that were arriving.

rant over .... pasta sauce sounds yummy!

foxgloves

All rants of that nature welcome, @Blackcats. I feel like ranting myself now, as Mr F rang an hour ago to say someone drove into the back of our car at a mini-roundabout on his way home from work. The chap was very shaken & said it was absolutely his fault, details exchanged, photos taken, etc, but there is now all the hassle of getting it repaired. Neither of them hurt, thankfully. 
F

themadvix

Glad neither of them hurt, but agree about the hassle. At least the man was decent about it.

badmemory

Sorry to hear about the car & glad Mr F wasn't hurt.  I must say I think mini roundabouts are quite dangerous.  Some people seem to think you can just drive straight through regardless of other traffic & others seem to sit there for ages when strictly speaking they had right of way.  Give me a set of lights any day.

foxgloves

Actually, now I've heard the full story, it wasn't at a mini-roundabout. I misunderstood that. Mr F had gone around the roundabout & was heading down the road when he came to a stationary vehicle which had stopped, waiting to make a right turn. Mr F stopped to wait & that was when the chap hit him from behind. Goodness knows WHY he didn't see a stationary vehicle right in front of him, but he said he didn't & was very apologetic. I have now seen the damage. It is not good. 
Ah well......he's just getting everything together to phone the insurers & I am going to feed the cats & wash the dishes. It is what it is, but not happy.
F x

Sun_Addict

Oh no @foxgloves. I’m glad no one was hurt but how annoying. Mr SA once had someone crash into the back of his van when he was stationery in traffic at the foot of a bridge. The car just came speeding over the bridge carelessly not expecting a queue.