Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

Blackcats

I was wrong as I thought the cats would prefer music!

I think reed diffusers can be as tempting and expensive as candles so your mix and match option is a great idea.
I was given a large golden pineapple diffuser at Christmas which I haven't yet used as I've never actually wanted a giant decorative pineapple and also I have also read that "in some subcultures like swinging the pineapple has been adopted as a symbol to indicate a welcoming and open attitude" 🙀

foxgloves

Lol, @Blackcats, surely an opportunity for you to shop a nice bowl from home for all those car keys!
F

PennysIntoPounds

😂 @foxgloves

Oh my goodness, my friend gave me some pineapple earrings for my birthday which I was wearing yesterday, alas my ears were not invited to any select gatherings 😁

foxgloves

Hello Sunday Savers,
Unexciting routine day here, but defo saved some money deciding to postpone our city centre trip for another week. A few useful bits & pieces today:
*Free bending & stretching session de-gunking the pond & clearing & weeding an overgrown section of border. 
*Planted out the very last summer bedding - 2 trays of rudbeckia grown from free seed.
*Replanted my alpine trough. I did buy 3 pretty alpines to give it a boost, but it was sub-£10 & budget-neutral as I used my Spends. I was able to rejuvenate & re-use stuff for the rest of the planting, as well as the pebbles.
*Cut down a big piece of old plastic netting to make a 'curtain' for the greenhouse doorway to keep out naughty beaks. 
*Did a survey then cashed out my June earnings from PA - total of £47-33. This gets added to my monthly Personal Spends, so once I'd done that, I sent £50 from my Spends to my Reserve Spends Pot, making a total of £150, which is just sitting there until I see something nice, so may as well be earning a little bit of interest. Sent my recent £10 survey earnings from another site to the Leisure/Entertainment Pot.
*Chatted through our diaries for the week ahead.
*Made tomorrow's packed breakfast (apparently packed lunch is going to be leftover Epic Man Stew).
*Jacket potato night, as we weren't sure when we wrote the meal plans what we would be doing today. Epic Man Stew is clearly on the agenda (& the potato) for one half of the relationship. I am going to cook some prawns with garlic & fresh coriander & top mine with those & some leftover coleslaw.
*Selected next book - another one from my library wishlist - as I have just a chapter or two left of my current one & will defo finish it this afternoon.
*Jotted a few things in my diary that I need to get done this week. I always say that keeping very organised always saves us money one way or another.
*Today's garden pickings: Just the coriander today, but I could be tempted to pop out to gather another little posy of flowers. Got to love free blooms!
As for today....no more jobs. Reading rest of newspaper, finishing my book, a bit of TV later, maybe knit some more of my current pair of socks for the presents bag & a hot bubble bath......that's all I'm intending to do for the rest of today.
Soot & Ash seem to know that it's Lick-e-Lix day & they're agitating. They are very amusing when they have those....Soot simply can't eat one without getting it on his nose & Ash is convinced that if he chomps down hard on the pouch with his back teeth, the fishy gunk will emerge more quickly. Actually, I think today's flavour might be some form of liver puree, so I shall stand well back!
Wishing everyone a relaxing rest of day,
F x

Sun_Addict

You’ve done better than I have with the surveys this month but every little bit adds to the coffers nonetheless. 

You do make me laugh with the phrases naughty beaks and epic man stew 😆

EssexHebridean

I currently have a pretty little Caithness vase on the windowsill with lavender, rose campion and a stray calendula flower in it - it makes me smile every time I glance it's way, and all just snipped from the garden from plants that really won't object in the least to having a few sprigs cut from them! I may add a few flowers from our bolted radishes to those, in fact. 

foxgloves

@Sun_Addict - Pleased to have provided some amusement! He takes these Epic man-stews very seriously, lol. They just start as a few random containers of leftovers from roast dinners, veg, etc, in the freezer. I can't say I've looked too closely at the actual alchemy on the day, but it appears to involve bunging everything in a big pan & adding whatever fresh stuff he fancies. Yesterday's creation also created 2 microwaveable work lunch portions, so they are good from a money saving point of view.

@EssexHebridean - Yes, that's exactly it, & why I particularly love my Dartington flower bottle (a birthday present a few years ago) because it is capable of making even a single bloom look like an artfully arranged display, when sometimes, it is literally one which has snapped off a nearby plant when I've been weeding.
F

foxgloves

Afternoon Money Savers,
I feel as though I'm getting off to a decent start to the week with a few budget-helping bits & pieces today:
*Baked bread.
*Did 2 loads of laundry. Switched the first load on at 6am as had seen the weather forecast. However, did get all of it line-dried before the showers started.
*Made tomorrow's packed lunch & breakfast.
*Did my usual Monday morning budget updates which involved the grocery budget, Personal Spends & transferring some funds from the House & Garden and the Dentist/Optician Pot. I'd budgeted for going out for lunch on dentist day - it's a bit of a drive & makes more of the day - but we underspent the amount I'd put aside by £11. I have added it to the amount I budgeted for a lunch date with friends, because I can see that with the remaining fresh stuff purchased tonight, that this is going to go over what I'd estimated. Now I've done that, my overall July budget shouldn't be affected.
*Did 3 surveys. Just been paid an outstanding £3 for a June survey too so that will help start me off for July.
*Random kitchen tasks....mainly stemming from thinking about our decision to challenge ourselves to a lower than usual grocery spend in July. Our budget cycle runs from 27th to the 26th, so Week 1's grocery shopping has already been completed & came in at an encouraging £41-73. I am running low on fine seasalt for baking/bread making so have had the food pro out & zizzed up another tub's worth of crystals from the big bag I bought in bulk a few weeks ago. Had thought to buy a nice salad dressing for the lunch I'm providing for friends tomorrow, but decided that would be really lazy when I have all the ingredients to make a nice french dressing myself with herbs from the garden, so I've done that as well, plus a few other things which mainly involved delving into the depths of the pantry to see exactly what's in there.
*On tonight's meal plan (devised specifically with the low July grocery budget challenge in mind), I'm doing a stir-fry using a lone pork steak from the freezer. Cut into fine strips & with plenty of veg, a stir-fry sauce plus noodles, it will easily stretch to 2 portions. The carrot for this stir-fry was the only meal this week requiring carrots, so I wrote on the shopping list "1 carrot only". I have budgeted our usual amount of money for this month's groceries but the idea is that we spend as little of it as possible (while still eating good food) so as to have sufficient left over to do an end of the month pantry stock-up at A*di. Usually, I budget an amount for this separately, so it will be a genuine saving if we can manage it from a grocery budget underspend. 
Right, that is me pretty much done for jobs for today. Time for a hair wash so that I don't look too witchy for my friends visiting tomorrow (we haven't seen each other for 6 years!), to distribute cat treats & then have an hour with my book. Just started 'Went to London, Took the dog - a diary' by Nina Stibbe. I think I'm going to find it quite amusing. 
Hoping everyone's managed to get off to at least a reasonably decent start to the new week. If not, don't worry. After all, tomorrow's not going anywhere, is it, so plenty of time to get the big girl's pants on & start again.
F x

PennysIntoPounds

Have a lovely lunch and big catch up with your friends tomorrow! Your salad dressing will I'm sure be much nicer than store bought 

themadvix

Ooh, thanks for the book recommendation - it’s on my library audiobook system, so have just borrowed it.

 Hope you have a lovely lunch tomorrow!