Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

Thanks all of you x

foxgloves

Glorious Suffolk sunshine this morning. Have come out to a place where I have been very very spendy in the past, so it will.be interesting to see what catches my eye. Personal Spends at the ready. When they're gone, they're gone!
F x

foxgloves

P.S Was nicely restrained! We did buy some presents, but that is from a different budget pot, & I'm a firm believer in buying present items early if the perfect item happens to be spotted. Just about to tot up what we've spent from the holiday expenses pot.....another thing we wouldn't have bothered with back in the bad old days, as that would have just been unbudgeted multiple flashings of the plastic.
Normal postings will resume once we are back at Foxgloves Manor. Hope you are all ok,
F x

scandimore

Glad you're enjoying yourself @foxgloves
It all sounds very lovely.

Makingabobor2

Glad to hear you are having a good time. 

Sun_Addict

Sounds like you’re having a lovely time. Glad the weather is decent for you. 

2Scratters

Quite pleased with myself today a couple of wins. Took a work colleague friend into local town as it has nice independent shops with reasonable prices and of course the expensive ones too. I even managed to drag her into a CS without her freaking her out as she was looking for something specific. No joy in finding what she was after. Me...however did spot in a dress agency some lovely Bridge hand bags, I already have 2 why would I need any more? Just enjoyed the routing. Then in another CS  found a lovely little Enny leather purse and I have a penchant  for them too. I even picked it up and thought about it seriously only £3.50. Back it went. I have 5 bags of the make too. Yes I am SABLE in those items. 
2nd win was checking when putting some more saved £1 UU surplus stock items into a purse in one of the above bags I have already saved £45 since early March  for those that have missed my "game" for each used surplus stock item I save £1 (this is coming from the House keeping money purse) no matter what the original price was. The aim is we will eventually have a lot less stock and a good sum of money to make only the appropriate purchases when needed. I won't need perfume for at least 3 years. 

2 Scratters xx

EssexHebridean

Belated happy walnut whip day Foxgloves - glad to hear you’re having a fabulous time! x 

thriftmonster

Delurking to wish you a belated wonderful birthday and holiday. Your diary is one of my favourites 

foxgloves

Hello Friday Frugalistas, & welcome to @thriftmonster - do feel free to de-lurk more regularly & join in with the chat. All contributions & ideas welcome if they save us a few quid.
Many thanks for all the birthday wishes. Much appreciated. We had a lovely holiday. The cottage was gorgeous & we worked out that we could stay there again, but off-season to assist with reducing the rental cost. I wonder what my new decade will bring. It started quite well as I was stopped by a young student with a clip-board on a seat-front close to where we stayed, who was gathering people's views on sea defences & tourism. He asked my age & said he couldn't believe I was 60! I'm sure he was being polite, but it was a bit of a boost to the old gal, lol!
We drove back last night, arriving home too late to do much more than lug bags out of the car, have a drink & tumble into bed. I can't believe how much I have to do now I am home. I have unpacked, but as I am both a leftie & news junkie, I have spent rather too much time following the election results this afternoon & not enough doing other stuff. Never mind, yesterday was a long & busy day and none of these outstanding tasks are going to disappear overnight.
So tomorrow will involve a mountain of laundry, sorting out the budget (I was only able to set a very condensed version before we went away) including best use of leftover holiday expenses money (Did you hear that? Leftover money!!!), doing meal plans & food shop & writing thank-you letters. I enjoy writing letters, so that's no hardship & I do like to thank people properly. I have had the briefest of trots down the garden to see how my plants have fared over the past week. I can see that my spare back-up cucumber plant has rotted but everything else in the greenhouse seems on a first quick perusal to look ok. The local sparrow army has had a right old time with the salad troughs - I cover the emerging seedlings with metal grids to keep them safe from naughty beaks, but pak-choi & rocket are fast growers & while we've been away, they have grown taller than their protective grids meaning enormous levels of sparrow delinquency - perching on top & pecking all the leaves poking through. I will attempt to do some kind of recovery, although they are both speedy crops to re-sow. Of course I left squash/courgette/beans sowing until we got back too, so must crack on with those asap. 
I am going to pop down & close the greenhouse up for the night now as it is a chilly wet day here. It was glorious in Suffolk yesterday. I had to take 2 layers off while we were out & about (a long time since I had a day of 9000+ steps!) & was still so hot in the fabulous sunshine that at one point, I felt I might actually expire on the floor of the brewery shop! Back to normal now, needless to say....long sleeved dress, hoodie, tights & woolly socks & I'm not really even what I'd describe as a chilly mortal. 
Anyway, this was only supposed to be a brief "We're home". Talk to you when I've got a few of those jobs crossed off.
F x