Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

Tescodealqueen

Happy new Diary, love the title. Feeling quite resourceful myself. Having had this lurgy that is going round we finally felt a bit better yesterday. Hadn’t touched any of the cream we had bought for the Christmas pud and it was getting close to use by date. I had read somewhere you can make butter from cream so looked it up and managed to turn the cream into passable cake of butter (which I am loathe  to buy since the huge price increase) and buttermilk which is now being used to marinate some chicken for tomorrows dinner. And all this talk of eggs made me look at those and sure enough will have to be used soon so it’s omelettes for dinner tonight

Baileys_Babe

I've subscribed so I can be there for the fun and laughter, trials and tribulations and to offer support and friendship.

foxgloves

What a lovely reception for my new diary. Changing from a long-term fritterer who thought budgeting was for squares into somebody who now keeps a household money book & lives within her means & has some savings has been game-changing for me - I'd sum it up by saying I feel much more comfortable in my own skin, if that makes sense. I've always been leftwing, quite ethical & interested in green issues, etc, so all my silly irresponsible buying of stuff never really gelled with my deeper sense of who I really am. I will now always (from lived experience) be someone who advocates for a debt-free lifestyle. 
So thank-you all for your encouraging comments.

@Deni_debt-free_dreamer - Being mortgage-free happened unexpectedly for us, but it does suddenly throw the option of systematic savings into the mix, so I think this will be a key year for you if it is due to be 'Bye-bye mortgage'. That's good to hear.
@ladyholly - "A good life without waste" - Yes, I love it! That's very much my approach, but you put it beautifully succinctly.
@DawnW - I do always write each day's planned meal in my diary, but I think using these monthly planner pages in my new one will be better because I'll be able to see at a glance where I can roll surplus ingredients & leftovers into other meals.
@CRANKY40 - Very wise of your Nana re eggs! I bet mine knew that trick too. She used to call herself 'Mrs Thrift' & she was indeed extremely thrifty, but she'd lived through hard times including 2 world wars. She would be absolutely horrified by household food waste statistics these days.
@QueenJess - Mr F has been angling for garlic flatbreads recently. They're a great use-it-up for yoghurt.
@OpalGirl - I get to hear a little of the economic/political situation in Australia as my bestie is married to an Australian, He's lived over here for 3 decades, but travels back annually to see his family.
@weenancyinAmerica - Oh, I'd forgotten that egg test! We learned it in school cookery lessons, as our teacher was very waste-averse.
@Moorviews - Yes, our income halved when I went part-time in round 1 of the austerity cuts, followed quite quickly by VR in round 2. Part of the deal was that I'd aim to backfill the income gap with old-style activity like growing food, batch-cooking, etc. I do need to adapt our budget a bit for this year though, to offset the dire UK economic situation.
@Chrystal - I did laugh that I'd caused you to spend money! That was a good price for those diaries though. There is lots of space in them for planning. I think I'm going to use the annual planner to note renewal dates for all our insurances, etc, so I can see them all together. 
@Tescodealqueen - I'm awarding you 10/10 for resourcefulness for your butter-making. I haven't made butter since I was at school, & that was by accident!
F x

foxgloves

@ziggy2407 - I must confess that if you've asked yourself "What would Foxgloves do?" today, then the answer is "Eat cake!"
Glad you sorted out a new washing machine - typical of it to choose New Year to cark it - a time when most people want to be pulling in their horns a bit & revisiting budgets.
I agree about the price of cat food. It's shot up in price. For about 2 or 3 years, the best price for it around here was in Wilk*'s, but not any more. We went to buy a couple of boxes (after 18 months of being catless) & found that it was cheaper to get the same brand from Waitr*se! We shop around now & divert via Mr M's if it is cheaper there. Ash isn't too fussy, though can be a bit random. Soot is a jelly-licker. 
£1000 in side-hustles last year was an awesome amount! I haven't done any online sales for ages (apart from the occasional box of books to Ziff*t. I think I like selling vintage items the most & I've kind of got to a position now where I want to keep all the vintage stuff I still have. The only exception is a few big Wedgewood mugs (tankard size) with historical themes, which I started collecting in my 30s during my shockingly spendy & very frequent weekend visits to antique/collector fairs. I don't really want to be wrapping & posting china though, so I may just take them to the antiques place or market in town & see if a dealer will swap them as a job-lot for something I do want. I wouldn't be bothered if they got the better deal, as I'd just prefer to have something more useful instead. I've done quite well with surveys throughout 2022 - I managed to raise almost all of the cost of our turkey in supermarket vouchers from 2 survey sites & have augmented my monthly Personal Spends quite a lot by doing PA surveys more regularly. I don't do as many survey sites as I used to, but I am going to continue with the ones I like & find productive.
I've also done more competitions recently. I always used to say that I only win one prize each year, but couldn't think of anything I'd won in 2022. Then I remembered I won £50 of supermarket vouchers in their monthly customer feedback prize draw. So I must get back to doing those too. Do you still do all your comping?
F x

cashlink

I loved your old diary and have book marked this one. I love the way you write, your honesty and approach to life in general. Looking forward to your daily messages.

foxgloves

Hello Money Savers,
It's been a sunny day up in our neck of the woods today, so we headed off as planned for our lakeside walk & also got our annual car parking pass sorted out while we were there. We knew it had increased in price to £50 so I did do a quick bit of totting up first to make sure we do visit sufficiently often to make it worthwhile, but we definitely do. It's a little nearer than a few of the other places we like to go for a walk, so we save a bit of petrol going there as well. So we paid up. I'd popped the money for it into our Leisure & Entertainment Pot, so it was budgeted for. Bought a coffee each (Personal Spends) but snuck in a couple of contraband mincemeat muffins from home to prevent a further spend on a naughty little cakey-poo (no calories when you bring your own from home). Apart from the princely sum of £1.89 on a nice birthday card for our nephew, nothing else has been spent today. Plenty of temptation, as the gift shop there is nice, also an interesting garden centre, but it isn't a year for random purchases, more one for making-do & shopping from home. 
Mr F returns to work tomorrow so we are having a leisurely day today. I've put a load of laundry on, but that's the full extent of my job intentions until tomorrow. I have lots of jobs planned for the rest of the week - everything gets so bound up in preparing for/provisioning Christmas that I find I lose track of what we actually have in stock, so I'm planning a bit of a stock-take to make sure I don't inadvertently waste anything. I will definitely be tackling the pantry & freezer, but as I opened my bathroom cupboard this morning & found myself leaping to catch the pile of stuff that fell out (thankfully before any of it headed down the loo!), I think I'd better start with a clear-out right there plus an inventory of my toiletries stash. I also need to start packing away all our Christmas things & to do some budget updates.
So I think it's going to be a week of fairly random domestic stuff for me, but it's actually just what I need, as it will be a good opportunity to assess our current stocks of various stuff & get a feel for where we are, as we move into January. My only aim for this week is to finish it feeling both back in the swing of things & heading in a good strong direction. 
Tree looking so pretty with its little white lights. I shall miss it when they are back up in the loft, but each thing to its season, & we will soon have snowdrops.
F x

foxgloves

@cashlink - Thank-you. I think I spent a LOT of the Spendy Decades being dishonest with myself about my financial situation - mostly around the whole area of me being a victim of circumstance where my permanent lack of funds was concerned. This was, of course, absolute rubbish - the one & ONLY cause was my choice constantly to overspend my income every month. Around the time of the LBM & the early budgeting attempts which followed, I did become much more up front & honest about my attitude towards money & I think that is why I am happy to share the experience. I've read several first posts on these forums from people desperately wanting to get rid of their debts, along with all the same excuses for overspending as I myself used to use on a daily basis. If we want to address our debts, we first need to be honest about the cause...............& that cause was very definitely me!
F

Humdinger1

@foxgloves how true! I also (perhaps subconsciously) used to feed the narrative of how I was far too busy to budget...and given my importance in the great scheme of things, I jolly well deserved whatever it was.  Not that I'm accusing you of the latter, just reflecting on what a relief it was when I could stop being so full of my own importance.   

jwil

Happy new diary

BalanceBy50

Happy new year & diary! Another fan here & often think what would foxgloves do 😂

I am trying to make small changes based on ideas gleaned from other peoples diary and I have to say a huge thank you for making my make up last! I love getting new make up but tend to stick to my favourites! My last two tubes of BB cream I have cut the top of and used a cotton bud when I thought it was empty & then used a peg to keep it closed. I have got at least an extra months worth out of each tube & would never have thought of doing it if I hadn’t read it in your diary ☺️