Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

Moorviews

Blackcats- that made me laugh 😆 I do love the way that birds look at the potential of everything for a home. We once had robins nesting in a cycle helmet and blue tits in a small cubbyhole in the stone beside the kitchen window. They do provide a lot of joy as well as anxiety for their wellbeing. 

Foxgloves- I am glad that you are being well rewarded for your forethought with the swift boxes. You have inspired me to look into the possibility here, although I still have wooden soffits and fascias.

foxgloves

Lovely reading your comments about nesting birds & onion-peeling. will need to peel one tonight so am going to put a teaspoon in the freezer for a short while & see if that increases the duration of the 'teaspoon in mouth' thing working.

@Moorviews - Even though our 3 boxes came in at over £100, we haven't once regretted buying them. Last night, we sat out on our courtyard with an ice-cream watching the local swifts swooping all over the place, screeching with delight (them, not us!) & folding up their wings so as to be able to dive straight into our boxes to feed their tinies. We do have a veg garden plan which is going to have a financial cost, but when that's finished, we reckon we could accommodate another 3 boxes, which we're sure our tree-work chap would put up for us as we know he has long ladders. I was sorry to hear that a government motion to make a swift brick obligatory in suitable new-builds didn't get the support required to go through. The swifts are no trouble at all, arrive in May & set off back to Africa mid-August. 
F

foxgloves

Hello Monday Money-Savers,
What a humid old day it is today. Mr F wilts in the heat (worse than me) & was too hot to sleep last night, so was (trying not to stomp around) getting the fan set up & switched on in the early hours. What a useful buy that was - not expensive, only a basic one - department store own-brand - but it has already earned its keep in the few years we've had it. Anyway, I've got off to a reasonable start to the week from a budget point of view:
*Picked a lettuce & coriander.
*Picked a decent sized bowl of strawberries. Have prepped & filled 2 sundae glasses for dessert tonight & made the rest into compote to top a home made rice pudding tomorrow.
*Baked bread.
*Tonight's planned meal = spicy lamb couscous & salad. The leftover lamb plus some chopped peppers from freezer plus various other bits & pieces. This sort of meal is good for doing a round-up of stuff which needs using, I always think.
*Made tomorrow's packed lunch & breakfast.
*Did my usual Monday morning budget updates.
*June's groceries (which include cleaning stuff & cat food) came in at £3 under budget, so I have pinged that over to the Present Pot in the spirit of every little helps.
*Did a few surveys. 
*Cleared a few emails & assorted bits of admin, including booking pens for Soot & Ash at the cattery as we have been invited away in December. Have made a note to remember nearer the time to budget for their boarding fee as this is not part of my holiday payment schedule which is worked out to the nearest £ with no slack for additional plans. Glad I booked nice & early as we have nearly been caught out a couple of times with some of the local catteries closing for winter or Christmas.
Mr F was very proud of his low-cost grocery shop last week & has suggested that we make July a low-spend month for groceries. We are currently thinking that I will set the usual monthly amount, but we will attempt to spend as little as possible, while still eating nice things. Partly this is to use up current freezer supplies, but we would also like to have a decent wodge left at the end of the month to do a bulk pantry stock-up on certain items we like to get from A*di 2 or 3 times a year. I usually budget an additional sum for this so that it doesn't eat too much into our normal monthly grocery budget, but this time, we think a good, thoughtful month, maybe being a bit creative with meal plans, desserts, packed lunches, etc, could leave us with the necessary sum without impacting the rest of the budget. We are going to start with a July master meal-plan (which will run from 29th June to 27th July) & Mr F is very keen to be involved in this......which will be very helpful, actually, as I know he has squirrelled quite a lot of those local butcher bargains away in the freezer & I'm not sure what they all are. Anyway, that's the plan!
Right, it's time for me to go & fetch another glass of water - it's gone very cloudy here & no visible sun atm, but very humid - & see if the cats are interested in their treats. Ash came in for breakfast but only ate half of it before disappearing back out again to whatever den he's currently favouring. The feral side of him really comes out on these hot days.
Hope everyone's got off to a decent start to the week,
F x

EssexHebridean

that sounds like a great plan on the grocery budget - that's exactly how we do things when we call a low spend month too - just aiming to see how much we can leave in the pot come the end of the month. In fact, I'm slightly wondering if we might join you in aiming to do that next month...hmmm. 

Sun_Addict

I’ve been thinking about an additional budget for stocking up items in bulk, particularly when there’s a good offer on. 

EssexHebridean

This is why I like to have a month here and there where we aim to underspend - as that surplus then works in our favour when it comes to needing to have a month where more than an average amount of bulk-buy type stuff needs topping up! 

foxgloves

@EssexHebridean & @Sun_Addict - Yes, these are exactly the sort of thoughts/conversations we've been having. Mr F still very much up for doing this & in fact, mentioned it again this morning. I think the very fact that we want to stock up on good grocery deals is part of our money saving behaviours on these diary threads & it can be at odds with sticking within our regular monthly budgets as we can't always know when we are going to see a great offer. There are 3 aspects of this which regularly affect us - First, restocking our cleaning products at the local eco-refill shop. A tub of peppercorns, nuts, dried fruit, herbs, spices, etc, are all low cost & would just be part of our regular weekly grocery target but obviously filling up 2 or 3 washing up liquid bottles, hand soap, multi-purpose cleaner, loo cleaner, etc, is more of a spend. Second is good multi-buy deals from our local butcher. He sometimes runs a '10 packs for £20' deal with so much variety, it would be folly not to take advantage & stock up the freezer. Third would be visiting a different supermarket (about 3 times a year) to stock up on certain (cheaper) products we like for the pantry - these are things we'd buy in multiples which we always use - tomato puree, decent British rapeseed oil, tinned pulses & various other lines - that can be a £50 to £70 shop at a time, so eats too far into our grocery budget for it to remain viable towards the end of the month. I have in the past tried to foresee the pantry stock-up shops hoving into view & budgeted the money for them separately, but that's then £50 to £70 that isn't available for other things......especially the Savings Pots which we always think of as our '1st line of defence' when financing something.
I think the months we identify as potentially good for a 'low spend' grocery month will depend very much on knowing we have plenty in stock, as we do at the moment, from which we can make a month's worth of meals without needing to buy much extra in terms of proteins. July does look like just such a month so we are going to give it a try. If we can end up with a decent amount for doing a pantry stock-up without me having budgeted extra, then it will have been worth it as we'd expect a pantry stock-up buy done around the end of July to last us to well into November. Feeling motivated!
F

foxgloves

Hello Sunbeams......although 'Hotbeams' might be more appropriate atm, as there is not a lot of actual sun, just horrid high humidity. Poor Soot is not enjoying it at all & didn't even want all of his breakfast this morning.....though that could equally have been connected to the furball he thoughtfully delivered just in time for Mr F to deal with before he set off for work! I shan't be as productive today. I'd planned a decent garden border clearing session this afternoon but I think I will wilt if I get too stuck into that, as I already have a headache....not from poorliness, just a result of the mugginess. Anyway, such budget-helping bits as there are today:
*Super-easy meal tonight as have defrosted 2 portions of lamb bhuna. Sufficient salad leftover from yesterday to serve with it so shall only need to cook some rice.
*Have rounded up a bit of milk I froze last week because it was on its last day, ditto a 1/3 bottle from the fridge & will make it up to a pint from a newer bottle for a rice pudding which will be served hot with some of the strawberry compote I made tonight & cold with remaining compote tomorrow. 
*Watered greenhouse & outdoor veg & relocated another 2 snails to 'Behind the log pile del Sol' for a holiday.
*Sent more photos for displaying at the funeral ceremony of my elderly relative. As a life-long keen genealogist, I do have a big digital archive of photos, but it made me think how much easier it is to be able to send them in this format. Back in the day, I would have had to try & get them copied in town, then packaged, weighed & posted & in this case, would almost certainly not have got them there in time. I very much see IT/Comms as a mixed blessing......it can help us with so very much, yet can also the biggest waster of time imaginable......but I was grateful this morning to be able to select a few more photos (our elderly relative was stunning in her youth - how nice for people who only knew her as a very old poorly lady to see those - & get them pinged off for free in an instant.
*Did a survey but am not feeling the survey love today so will probably not check into them again until tomorrow.
*Made tomorrow's packed lunch & breakfast.
*Start a page in my notebook for July's 'low spend' meal planning.
Also did the ironing in front of the open & window & fan before it got too humid - unfortunately there was quite a lot of it but I was delighted to discover that a new top chosen by Mr F recently doesn't require any ironing at all. More of those please! Of course we used to be responsible for our own ironing back when we were both working full time. I only took it on when I took VR & said I would contribute more to running the household. Right, time to go & make my lunch, fire up the coffee machine & see if any hot cats might be wanting their lunchtime biscuits. Then I think I might enjoy some time in the shade reading my book.
F x

foxgloves

Afternoon Campers,
Another hot one. I got cracking early as usual, but I particularly like to do so in hot weather so I can get the more active stuff done before I start to wilt like a week-old daisy. Well, with our plans to challenge ourselves to a lower-spend on groceries in July, today's money saving thoughts have been concentrated a fair bit around food growing & using things up:
*Cleared a section of the horrendously bindweed-infested border I have been moaning about. Soil hard as rock, which surprised me after the very wet year we have had, so didn't do as well with root removal as I'd hoped. I am damn sure I've weakened it though.....pulled loads out so at least it can't get additional sustenance from rampant photosynthesis! Defo a free bending & stretching session there ('green gym' being the only kind of gym I'm interested in) & the 2 big gaps left by cutting back spent plants have been filled not by a little trippette to the garden centre, but by using a large potted agapanthus which will soon be flowering & a ceramic tub containing one of Mum's geraniums.
*Watered all the veg.
*Today's garden pickings: lettuce, basil & spring onions. Also the last of the cress I've been growing in an old ice cream tub lid on the kitchen windowsill.
*Our home grown stuff is getting to the stage where it is starting to have a positive impact on the food budget. For example tonight will be pesto pasta (batch-made from the last of our over-wintered chard & frozen) topped with a handful of cheese, along with a big bowl of fresh salad containing lollo rosso lettuce, basil, spring onions, cucumber & cress. The only thing in it we haven't grown is the tomatoes because ours, while now setting fruit nicely, will still be green for a bit longer yet. For dessert, we are having the rest of yesterday's home made rice pudding with the last of the strawberry compote which I made from our home grown strawberries. We haven't had to put lettuce, cucumber, coriander or basil on our shopping list for a while & the only strawberries we bought were specifically for me to make strawberry & rhubarb jam. The veg plot & greenhouse are defo going to help with our planned 'Spend less on groceries' July.
*Made tomorrow's packed lunch & breakfast.
*Did a few surveys - I have now reached my monthly earnings target of £40 from PA, as long as I receive all my payments by 30th when I'll be cashing out. If not, the straggler payments will start me off for July. Am not far off next cash-out from IPs*s so that usually gets pinged straight to the Leisure Pot when it arrives.
Right, I shall have to get cracking as I have promised myself a cool bubble bath to tackle the grime from grubbing around in that flower border!
Wishing everyone a pleasant evening, it's my Big Budget Day tomorrow so shall need to sharpen up those little grey cells.
F x

foxgloves

Morning Campers, rise & shine!
Well, I've risen, but the 'shining' isn't happening yet. All yesterday's heat seemed to have lodged itself in our bedroom, so even with the fan on, it was a muggy, not particularly restful night.
Today is my monthly Big Budget Day & I'm planning on bringing my laptop & paperwork down to the conservatory dining table where I can have the french doors flung open. Have also put some laundry on to wash as I don't have all that many hot weather clothes & need to keep stuff in circulation. 
We did our July master meal plan last night, based on a lower spend than usual & selected 7 meala for next week. I shall write the grocery shopping list this morning. Oh, & I shall need to make dough for tonight's pizza base & a batch of rolls, & pick some more salad stuff from the garden.
Think coffee is definitely needed & while that's brewing, I'll go & open up the greenhouse.
Wishing everyone a productive day,
F x