Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

PennysIntoPounds

I write my diary posts in the memo bit of my phone then copy and paste, the interwebz can't be trusted- and nor can my memory if I don't assemble it when I remember here and there 😁

ladyholly

Poor Mr F. I was once called into work New Years Eve about 8pm to work overnight. I had been drinking but was the most sober person. Not much fun being on call like that.

foxgloves

@threepenny_bit - I just lob flour & water into my starter jar until it looks 'about right' these day, but my original starter came from a book I borrowed from the library by James Morton (he was an early 'GBBO winner if I remember rightly?) It was the earlier book - I think 'Brilliant Bread' or something like that? It was a long time ago as I made it in July 2017 & have managed to keep it alive ever since.
Just have a go. There is so much geeky stuff surrounding sourdough-baking which makes it sound far more of an arcane science than it actually is in practice. There is a Sourdough Rebels group on FB & they experiment with all sorts of shortcuts & individual methods & still produce nice loaves. I have hardly any specialist kit tbh (though back in my Spendy Years, I'd doubtless have bought every gizmo going!). I have a kilner jar in which my starter lives, a proving basket, a dough scraper & a scoring blade (the latter was £2.99, & actually I already owned the scraper). A flour dredger is useful for coating the basket, but I already had one of those too - charity shop find years ago. 
Just have a go. Some of your loaves will be better than others, but they will still be tasty & perfectly edible. Even after 7 years of baking a weekly sourdough, I often get an over-proved one or an odd rise & it doesn't matter because I'm a home cook, not an artisan baker getting up at 2am to stock a posh indie bakery with crusty perfection. Good luck!
F

foxgloves

Morning Campers!
A rather mundane morning doing various jobs, then hopefully a good productive garden session after lunch - that's the plan, anyway!
Today's small budget-helping things:
*Selected a week's worth of meals from July's master meal plan.
*Wrote grocery shopping list. Crossed off a couple of items we'd usually automatically buy as we are still committed to achieving a significant underspend this month on groceries.
*Made tomorrow's packed lunch & breakfast.
*Cheapy use-it-up meal tonight  - the last 2 portions of soup from the freezer, which we have been using up, so that will be tomato for Mr F & roasted pumpkin for me......& cheese on toast which will be from yesterday's sourdough loaf & the leftover extra cheese bought for the lunch I hosted last week. Never looks like much but the thing with home made soup is that it is really filling. Found a container of forgotten about dhal while I was searching the freezer.
*Did a few budget updates - mostly paying weekend transactions off our credit cards & ensuring these have been paid from the correct pots.
*Made up 5 new 'Credit card payment log sheets' - for the extra couple of minutes it takes, I find it well worth noting additional (non bill) payments I make to credit cards as there have been several occasions when being able to check back has solved a muddle.
*Will check for surveys throughout the morning but none so far.
*Should be a good free bending & stretching session in the garden this afternoon as I'm intending to continue cutting back finished early summer stuff in a large tangly border as well as tackling this year's appalling bindweed growth as I go.
Intend a relaxing evening knitting & watching 'Sewing Bee'.
Right, time to go & fire up the coffee machine & make some breakfast.
Wishing everyone a decent day full of canny money-saving activity,
F x

threepenny_bit

foxgloves said:

@threepenny_bit - I just lob flour & water into my starter jar until it looks 'about right' these day, but my original starter came from a book I borrowed from the library by James Morton (he was an early 'GBBO winner if I remember rightly?) It was the earlier book - I think 'Brilliant Bread' or something like that? It was a long time ago as I made it in July 2017 & have managed to keep it alive ever since.
Just have a go. There is so much geeky stuff surrounding sourdough-baking which makes it sound far more of an arcane science than it actually is in practice. There is a Sourdough Rebels group on FB & they experiment with all sorts of shortcuts & individual methods & still produce nice loaves. I have hardly any specialist kit tbh (though back in my Spendy Years, I'd doubtless have bought every gizmo going!). I have a kilner jar in which my starter lives, a proving basket, a dough scraper & a scoring blade (the latter was £2.99, & actually I already owned the scraper). A flour dredger is useful for coating the basket, but I already had one of those too - charity shop find years ago. 
Just have a go. Some of your loaves will be better than others, but they will still be tasty & perfectly edible. Even after 7 years of baking a weekly sourdough, I often get an over-proved one or an odd rise & it doesn't matter because I'm a home cook, not an artisan baker getting up at 2am to stock a posh indie bakery with crusty perfection. Good luck!
F

Thanks so much - was definitely overthinking lol! Will get something growing 

foxgloves

Afternoon Campers,
Well, this morning's unexpected sunshine has disappeared & we are now back to grey skies & a chilly wind. Not the most exciting day here (when is it ever?!) but our town visit this morning shows how small wins are often there for the taking. Have kept the frugal faith thus:
*Today's garden pickings: a cucumber (no. 13 this year)
*Finished the house cleaning between us. Minimal chemicals & used washable cloths as usual. It's got to be a saving, hasn't it, not being suckered into buying a different commercial products for every cleaning job? (as well as saving on plastic by getting refills & what is washed down into our already struggling waterways)
*Parked on supermarket car park for free parking & decided we'd just keep our visit brisk.
*Some supermarket bargains - called at a different supermarket to our main shop to get the usual 40-box of Persian Queen for the beasticles. Said boxes priced at £15 - the lowest we've seen it for ages, so we bought 2 & I will charge the 2nd one to next week's grocery budget. Also found Longley Farm yoghurts which I really like yellow-stickered at 20p each, with a date good till early next week. Bought 4. Plenty of them, so hope lots of other people looked right up at the top shelf on the reduced bay.
*Talked Mr F into trying some own brand chocolate biscuits, which we fancied for the weekend. He was a bit suspicious until I reminded him that the big brands of these are doubtless owned by huge corporations/hedge funds & the ingredients are likely to be very similar, most bought biscuits being UPFs after all & big companies being primarily interested in their bottom line. Still not convinced, but wavering. Showed him the ingredients list on the own brand ones (80p) & the branded version (£1-50) & he agreed, so we are trying them.
*Bargain of the morning probably went to Mr F. He took a few no-longer-wanted X-box games into one of the trade-in shops. He'd seen a 4K blu-ray he'd been wanting for ages priced at £12 & thought he'd get a trade-in of £3 or £4 or so to use against it. He actually got £13-25 for those old games, so came out with the blu-ray free plus an e-voucher for £1.25. He couldn't believe it! Said "I thought a trade-in might mean me getting it for £8 at best & instead, they've paid me!" Just flagging this up in case anyone else's house is home to a pile of unwanted computer games!
*Did 3 surveys. 
*Entered a competition.
*Clipped out a recipe for my file of new things to try. I particularly like to save recipes for things we grow & could potentially have a glut.
*Planned meals for a family visit at the beginning of next month - also checked the restaurant at the place we will all be visiting & decided we would be better taking a picnic. Much better to discover that now & not when we are in the queue thinking "What? Over 9 flipping quid for a sarnie??!!" I do have a crumble base in the freezer waiting for an occasion when we are feeding guests, so will just need to add the topping to that & it can be served with ice-cream for dessert on one of the days. As with everything else, these things come in at a much lower strike on the budget if a bit of proper planning has been done in good time. And I do like planning meals for family get togethers.
*Mr F apparently desperate for a B*lly B00kcase shelf in the ManCave. I potentially have a spare shelf on one of my bookcases which would facilitate a shop from home. Have said that if he removes all the heavy books from my bookcase & checks for lurking 8-legged critters, I will have a sort out of my oversize books today & let him know. I quite enjoy sorting books so it will stop me moaning that the rain has now returned & stymied my planned prance around the garden with my secateurs.
Not my cooking night. I'm thinking TV, knitting, reading (nearly finished Nina Stibbe), & chatting to people on WhatsApp.
Wishing everyone a jolly good frugal Friday,
F x

foxgloves

Ha! Successful shopping from home! The book reorganisation worked really well, therefore freeing up a spare shelf for Mr F's bookcase which I didn't really need having now stood my oversize books up properly instead of having them in piles. That's saved the cost of buying a new shelf plus the petrol for getting to & from the Swedish Emporium, which is on the other side of the county. Result! Apparently, he does "still need to go there for something", but it isn't urgent & we can wait & tie in a visit to our friends who live over that way at the same time to make more of the day.
F x

foxgloves

Hello Saturday diary friends,
Definitely not a no-spend day, but managed to purchase the 1st item required for planned re-vamp of our veg garden at sale price - £50 off. We thought we might need to pay for delivery but then Mr F spotted a boxed one which would clearly fit in the car if he could lift it. Being built like a brick privy is so useful on these occasions, he hoisted it onto a trolley with ease. Pleased with the reduction on that as likely to be the most costly purchase for the project.
The other spending was the result of a bit of a saga regarding my sister's birthday next month - a bit of minor swearing from me (not at her as she's oblivious to the issue, which isn't anybody's fault) - now sorted!
Lunch out but no hit to the budget as paid from our Personal Spends. 
On the whole, a lazy day for me. Looking forward to cracking on with various garden tasks tomorrow. 
Enjoy your evenings, m'dears,
From F & Soot (in conservatory listening to the rain)
X

Sun_Addict

Great bit of bargain spotting for the veg garden. Glad the sweary present saga ended well. 

Have a good evening 🙂

PennysIntoPounds

Sales price and no delivery charge is a big win!
We had a tiny bit of weak sunshine here earlier and even that made a huge difference to how much more I felt able to do, let alone what's practical gardening-wise. Hope you get some decent weather tomorrow.
I wonder if it shows on any economics charts about the country's productivity output when it's been a more than usually gloomy season