Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

I remember years ago someone telling me that she did an experiment regarding the snails she repatriated to outside her garden boundaries. She put a little dot of bright nail polish on each one so she could see if they were coming back......& they were! Homing snails! We don't use any pesticides so my method of relocating is primarily to reduce mollusc damage while plants are too small/young to sustain it. Every creature plays a role in natural garden infrastructure & food chain. We used to have an old plum tree & one year, it was so completely covered with neon green aphids, I did briefly think I might have to investigate a less-brutal spray treatment. No need, however, because the local blue-tit population had also spotted them & gobbled most of them over the next couple of weeks.  It also saves the expense of buying pesticides, etc, with the knock-on benefit of fewer plastic bottles too.
F x

foxgloves

Hi Diary Readers,
Today's helpful bits & bobs:
*Made a crusty loaf (currently in oven)
*Helped Mr F construct rustic wigwam ready for french beans - used suitable branches saved from clearing wasteland behind shed during Lockdown.
*Watered plant babies.
*Hose watering gun thingy exploded into pieces when I used it. Mr F found an old nozzle he'd saved in a shed drawer of 'hose bits' so a temporary shopped from home solution at least.
*More bindweed clearing & weeding for me, during which I discovered a plant purchase from last Spring which I thought I had lost. 
*Two post-gardening baths from a single fill of hot water. Those energy figures on the smart monitor are noticeably falling now & am keen to rebuild credit.
*Make holiday planning lists. This will include food to take, esp meals for the first couple of nights & ingredients to make others later in the week. 
*Try to finish current section of knitting tonight so I can begin the sleeves.
*Make tomorrow's packed lunch & breakfast.
Mr F's cooking night. He's roasting a chicken which I have earmarked for a further 3 days of meals.
Hope everyone making the most of this lovely sunshine,
F x

marionmgcars

Oh I do love a roast chicken 😋 

DawnW

My hose watering gun thing also broke. I think it was due to the frost, and my fault, as I had left it attached to the hose instead of putting it away for the winter. We also have spare hose parts, so similarly shopped from home.

foxgloves

@DawnW - I've done that in the past too. I think there was water left in it, which froze & cracked it, but I'm not sure what caused it this time. I just connected the hose reel up to the tap, switched it on, squeezed the trigger & a jet of water shot out taking assorted broken bits of plastic with it! At least we could both shop a solution from home, even if only a temporary one. I always think those hose guns with the multiple spray patterns (which are helpful for gentle watering of seedlings, etc), are quite expensive for what they are.
F

foxgloves

Greetings Monday Money Savers,
Honestly, the weather here today has been crazy. There's apparently been a small tornado to the south of our part of the county & I'm not surprised. I was eating my breakfast in the conservatory this morning when a big squall blew up along with a big hail storm. The cats thought it was utterly rubbish & that early biscuits ought to be proffered as a sort of weather-based compensation. Needless to say, I did not give in, as they'd only have wanted another helping at their usual biscuits time (eye-roll). The sun is shining now but still v blustery & somebody's wheelie bin is making  its way down the street sideways.
Today's budget-helping positives as follows:
*No-Spend Day
*Decided not to order a fish box this time. It seemed sensible as we still have some fish left & May will almost certainly be one of those pesky 5-week shopping months. With a holiday in between too, I felt we could manage without this time & save a little cashola.
*Did my usual Monday morning budget updates (grocery budget, Personal Spends & a few minor transfers of funds) followed by my regular Mid-Month Budget Check-In. No nasty surprises there, I'm pleased to say, except for the fact that I have exactly £35 more than I was expecting. Now that is a nice round, very specific figure, so I am thinking it is an error in my accounting somewhere for something which involves a £35 transaction of some kind. Needless to say, when I checked for something of this ilk against my original April budget, there was nothing similar. Hmmm. I am not worried about it, as it's a discrepancy in our favour, but I am thinking it is one that will probably 'come out in the wash' as my Dad was fond of saying, & I will spot it on my next Big Budget Day. Odd though.....exactly £35......still thinking.....
*Cashed out my YouGov earnings so that was £50 swiftly received into our bank account - sent it to our Clothes Pot.
*Did a couple of other surveys, but not a lot on offer today from the very few sites I choose to do.
*Did a nasty pile of ironing & instantly felt that rosy glow of virtue. It was bed linen (all cotton) & the summer clothes from my seasonal clothes bag (all cotton or horrors, linen) so required both steam & effort. Thankfully I managed to get it all done before both ran out! My wardrobe has had a free refresh, anyway.
*Dealt with yesterday's roast chicken leftovers. I know Mr F likes to choose the biggest chicken he can find in the shop. but this one really has done a good s-t-r-e-t-c-h. It did 2 portions of lovely roast dinner yesterday & I have divided up the leftovers for cold chicken, home made cajun wedges & salad tonight, a stir-fry with noodles tomorrow, added some to a box of assorted Man Stew leftovers for topping Mr F's spud on Weds (jacket potato night), a chicken dijonnaise sarnie for tomorrow's packed lunch & there will also be some chicken soup. I don't know how many portions that will be, as haven't made it yet. I am waiting for the stock, which is in the slow cooker, smelling nicely savoury, & will probably make it tomorrow. Anyway, I was pleased with that & will also have at least one container of stock for the freezer too.
Well, now that the squally rain has stopped, I think I had better just have a quick pop out to the greenhouse to check plant babies. It's still very windy so I think I will have a look through the glass & leave the door shut. Then it will be a quick tidy around & 'getting cosy for the evening ahead' tasks. I'm glad I didn't bother putting any laundry on this morning as it would have ended up on the heated airer for sure. Unless the forecast has changed, tomorrow morning looks better, so will hopefully get pegged out long enough for free drying.
Cheers for now,
F x

milann

It’s been absolutely awful around these parts too. Hail, torrential rain and really strong gusts of wind. Must worse than the recent named storms. I cancelled going out. 

I want roast chicken now 😂😂

EssexHebridean

I'm putting washing off this week too - thankfully I got to the bottom of the washing basket the previous week and I've made the decision to move across from long sleeved tops to short sleeved, so not overly critical, and at the moment Thursday's forecast here is looking like the sort of day I might be able to get away with putting washing out before leaving for work, and bringing it back in when I get home so... 

foxgloves

Hello Diary Readers,
Reporting a thrifty Tuesday here - Mr F (wfh this morning) did pop across to the farm shop to procure a packet of biscuits, but the cost of those was offset with the return of our deposit on a big bottle of local-ish farm milk, which I had forgotten we hadn't returned. 
All in all, a bloomin' useful day! Budget-helping bits & bobs as follows:
*Did the rest of this week's laundry & pegged out on the whirlygig where it was all dried by lunchtime & ne'er a penny spent on plugging in the airer....
*...& to add to that, there were only 3 items which required ironing so the iron was on & off again very swiftly.
*Used most of the stock I made yesterday & the tub of chicken I put aside to make chicken soup. Also took the opportunity to use up the last couple of sticks of celery in it & other veg which I didn't think would be used in the next few days. It made 4 generous portions, which I've frozen. So Sunday's roast chicken will have provided 12 portions in total plus a spare container of stock. 
*Cut another couple of decent plant labels from the base of a spread tub (the most solid least bendy piece of plastic imo!)
*Watered all greenhouse babies.
*Sorted out greenhouse border - trugged off some of last year's compost onto one of the raised beds & trugged on some fresh from one of our compost bins. Raked, watered & put bottomless pots in place (stopped for caffeine top-up) & planted 6 plum tomato plants ('Roma') in place. I have 3 spare 'Roma' tomatoes as usually quite a few of them cark it during the seedling stage. I think I will put them in larger pots in case I lose any while we are away. These are the smallest of this year's tomato plants. The others, which will all be grown on outside when it is warm enough, are bigger & growing strongly. They have outgrown their 9cm pots & I will need to pot them on as a halfway measure before they finally make it to their bottomless pots outdoors. 
*Did a couple of surveys, but very little around while I have had my laptop on & I don't sit around waiting for them to turn up. Still, it all adds up. 
*Finish knitting main section of cardi, as didn't manage this last night.
And that is likely to be it for the day. It's jacket potato night tonight. Mr F says he'll do them as is already going to be in the kitchen concocting Epic Man Stew. I shall just have hummus & avocado slices on mine as that's what I fancy.
Some good news about the car today. Mr F's phone rang & as he was wfh, he expected it to be some or other issue at work, but instead, it was the repair garage up in Manchester. Our car has been mended & as they have to come down to our region tomorrow to deliver another couple of cars, they are going to bring ours too, which is a couple of days earlier than we expected, but the engineer has finished all the work. Mr F has put leave in for tomorrow so that we can both be here to take delivery as with the damage having been quite bad, we both want to have a good look at the repair work before we sign to accept it back. 
Some reading time for me now. Have borrowed an interesting & motivating book by HFW from the library - "Eat better forever", which I am enjoying. I also borrowed 'The Green batch cook book" (Sam Gates) & have bookmarked a few recipes from it I'd like to try. 
Ah well, onwards all!
F x

EssexHebridean

Oh what excellent news about your car! Definitely a good plan to have a good look around it before you sign for its return, too.