Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

Makingabobor2

Hope your day goes well. I need finish my budgets in a bit, didn't grt it all complete on Monday. 

foxgloves

Well, that's Big Budget Day done for another month. Reconciled June's budget first, against receipts, statements, etc, then worked on setting July's. I like to write it all out longhand in my trusty Money Book, as you know, finishing with payments into the Savings Pots, after other savings accounts have been paid & ending up with a viable buffer zone for the month ahead. Our Regular Saver is paid automatically as part of the bills spreadsheet. Have also paid into the Car Fund & bought this month's quota of premium bonds (come on Ernie, you slacker....). Had a total of £317 for the Savings Pots, which I divided between 5 of them. The Holiday Pot is the only one I HAVE to pay, or my holiday payment schedule which ensures we will have balances & cattery fees ready at the correct time will be thrown out of sync. I pay the other pots according to perceived need. We have 10 Savings Pots, but some of them are 'full' atm - in that they have reached the maximum holding Mr F & I agreed when we had our annual money summit meeting in January. I paid fractionally more than intended to the Clothes Pot because while I don't think either of us particularly require anything now, I know there are 4 pairs of boots in this house just waiting to head off to the great shoe rack in the sky. My standard DMs are the worse, followed by Mr F's DMs, then his hiking boots & then my DMs with roses up the sides. I am so torn about replacement of my DMs, They are so expensive these days, but on the longevity side, I bought my purple ones a month after me & Mr F got together & so I think they are allowed to give up after nearly 25 years! The other ones were a present for my 50th, so they have also done well as I wear both pairs very regularly. It's defo going to be a boot-buying Autumn! 
When I am setting the new budget, I have really come to learn the benefits of looking ahead in my diary to see what is looming that will require a financial outlay, then decide whether it is viable to fund it from normal budget streams, such as grocery budget or Savings Pots, or whether simply to include it as a specific item in the budget. Today I have done that with 3 occasions & set aside guesstimate amounts for a planned lunch out, a take-away pizza for election night (along with industrial quantities of metaphorical popcorn) & a lunch I'm hosting for an old schoolfriend & her partner. All these could come in at below my estimates & if they do, I will simply credit the underspend back to the overall budget. I could have used our monthly buffer zone for them as another alternative, but it isn't much of a 'buffer' if it is going to be spent on 3 perfectly foreseeable occasions, so properly into the July budget they went!
Other small things in the 'helpful' line:
*Pinged the shopping list to Mr F who informs me that he has some money-off vouchers for 2 or 3 of the items. He will doubtless be availing himself of the free coffee while he's there too.
*Did an interminably dull survey but it got me over the line for cashing out another tenner so that will be off to the Savings Pots when it arrives.
*Did a few PA surveys. There seem to be a lot of them about today, but my eyes were feeling a bit tired from all the number-crunching earlier, so I didn't attempt all that were available. If everyone pays me by cash-out day (30th), then I shall have met my £40 a month total.
*Today's garden pickings: lettuce, spring onions & basil.
*Made dough for tonight's pizza & a batch of rolls. Just on their 2nd proving. Hot veggie style topping tonight - sweetcorn, chopped peppers & chillies from the freezer plus tomatoes, cheese & basil.
*Did an impromptu load of laundry as it's still pretty warm here & a good breeze for pegging out.
Being busy with the budget today has helped keep my mind off the dentist tomorrow. I invariably need some or other filling, whereas Mr F's gnashers seem to be crafted from tungsten steel!
Right, off to get those rolls in the oven & fetch the laundry in.
Maybe a bit of time with my book after that, I'll see,
Cheers,
F x

Makingabobor2

Sounds like another good day for you FG, I always get such good ideas from reading your posts. x

twiggy86

Re DMs - I have recently bought two pairs on Vinted and there are always ones for sale on there...

• pair of heeled boots for £25 which looked like they hadn't been worn but had what looked like a factory fault that you can barely see RRP £179
• pair of sandals (which I've had my eye on for 3 years but couldn't justify/ afford) for £45 - again basically brand new RRP £110

So worth having a look on there maybe? 

foxgloves

@twiggy86 - Those were good bargains. Yes, I could look at that, although tbf, knowing I have got almost 25 years from one of my current pairs & 10 from the other, I shouldn't be too tight about replacing them with new. I think if I were to divide the cost of a new pair by daily wear based on how much I've worn the my old ones, I would almost be in minus figures! 
I used to have some DM chunky sandals from 'Raw' - Used to love that shop, was sorry when it disappeared. I got a good 4 years out of those too. I've been looking at a pair of bright fuchsia-pink soft leather DMs, as they would go with quite a bit of my stuff. I don't know if they'd be as hardwearing as the normal leather, but they are soooooooo lovely!
F

foxgloves

Greetings Friday Readers, How frugal have we been today then? I must admit I haven't been frugal as there has been spending, but all was planned apart from one item, & that only wasn't planned because I'd given up looking for it ages ago because I'd had no success! A cooler day today, so we are all happier, well that's me, Mr F & Soot - Ash doesn't mind the heat, as we should have realised during his first season with us when he spent all winter dangling his paws over the radiator. Anyway, enough with the woffle. Have there been any budget-helping bits & pieces today?
*Dentist appointment at university. Arrived too early, went in a bit late. Despite sign saying this wasn't possible, Mr F managed to extend the electronic parking thingy for extra time rather than risk a fine. NHS dentist for which we are very grateful, esp after having had a taste of private costs during my implant work. No treatment required so just the cost of 2 NHS check-ups to pay.
*Lunch as planned at our favourite garden centre on the way home. decided we only fancied something light - cheese scones & coffee, so didn't even use half of the money I'd budgeted for a lunch out. Even buying a couple of bags of posh crisps on the way out didn't come close, so that is some funds I can divert elsewhere. 
*VERY tempting garden centre indeed. Stayed away from the bags & lovely purses, sparkly sandals, outdoor lifestyley stuff & dresses but did buy the items on my list & the one extra thing already mentioned which will be funded from the House & Garden Pot. 
*One of the items I was browsing for was a reed diffuser for our bathroom. I wanted a nice one rather than £ shop 'Eau de toilet quack', but oh my goodness, the price of some of them!! (All upmarket-looking brands) One brand was £85 for a box containing a not very large (or very full) bottle of fragrance & some admittedly interestingly curly reeds. £85 though! Spent a fair bit of time browsing (which I did enjoy) & then found myself breaking these things down into their component parts (I don't mean literally, like a one-woman 'Just stop expensive home fragrance' protest, but in terms of how I might get better value. There were lots of bottles of fragrance for refilling the diffuser bottle & also packets of spare reeds. So I bought quite a large bottle of the refill liquid fragrance (£23 & will do several fills by the look of it) & a pack of reeds for £1.50. Back home, I found a nice recycled bottle & am using that. None of the boxes of diffuser bottle (with a single fill of oil) & reeds came in as low as that & I am happy with how it looks. Nice fragrance too, I opted for a fresh vebena-type one. Years ago, I attempted to make one of these myself, using various herbs & spices infused in oil. It smelled nice (& was all natural ingredients) for about a week, before turning into something one might scrape out of a gutter. Think buying just the refill fragrance liquid, cheapy pack of reeds & using own bottle from home is a good compromise.
*Bought small gift to complete my sister's birthday bag  - only a small spend, so I will charge that to July's buffer zone. I often do that for small purchases, as I like to leave the Presents (or whichever) Pot to build up.
*Entered a competition & did a couple of surveys. Decided not to do a £15 one, which would have been great for my June survey cash-out target, but it was just too long & I have other things to do.
*Watered all the veg & did usual checks for pests & problems. Pleased to see that both emergency tromboncino seedlings have emerged. 
Honestly, I've got to smile.......Mr F is in the kitchen & I've just heard him ask Soot & Ash whether they want to listen to a podcast or some music while they eat their dinner! 
Right, final check for (shorter) surveys then I think I will aim to finish reading my book.
Power to the Money Savers!
F x

PennysIntoPounds

Lovely work on the reed diffuser! And glad to hear you weren't getting your umbrella out in protest 😁
Aw bless Mr F, that's made me smile too

badmemory

I would just like to know what their answer was because I am prepared to bet they have an opinion.

foxgloves

Lol, they appeared to choose a podcast featuring Jonathon Pie.
F

foxgloves

Evening Diary Readers,
Admittedly have just spent an hour on the coffee bench eating crisps & doing the crossword, but today has actually been pretty decent for money saving, mostly on the gardening front:
*Went to village farm shop cafe for breakfast as intended (Personal Spends!) & discussed tomorrow's planned city centre trip, which was interesting as.......
*We decided we don't really need to go, thus saving parking charge, petrol & our own shoe leather before getting onto potential purchases.
*Popped to village garden centre to have another look at a 3-tier wooden planter which we are strongly considering for strawberries next year. Also talked through our plans for re-organising our veg plot & a realistic budget for the project.
*Today's garden pickings: Strawberries, mint, cucumber no. 10, a bowl of potatoes (look good, Mr F has gone back to growing them in the ground as we never do very well with container-grown). He also lifted our garlic crop. Excellent bulbs. Variety = French Topadrome - 3rd year we've grown this variety. Now laid out to dry in newspaper-lined crate. He also lifted a few shallotts just to see how they're doing & they're getting ready too.
*Potted next lot of lettuce seedlings into modules, also hollyhocks (free seed from.my friend) & planted young chard plants in the herb bed.
*Reinvigorated a rather sad container by adding a spare geranium & some rudbeckia.
*Split some forgotten about sempervivum & planted up an old broken terracotta pot...which provided another pondside container for free.
*Pruned a long straggle from a penstemon & realised it would easily provide 4 or 5 cuttings, so I did those & at least some of them will be flowering-size next summer. Perennials really are worth propagating from divisions, cuttings, etc, as they are getting costly to buy, especially in the multiples which are generally needed to make an impact. The verbena bonariensis cuttings I took last Autumn are all in flower & some are taller than me (not difficult!)
*Mr F did all the weekend watering & veg feeding.
*Received a $10 bonus for a PA survey I did yesterday, which was a nice surprise.
*Recycled 3 more plastic bottles into cloches rtg in Spring.
And that's been my day. Not ruling out a gin later.
F x