Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

KajiKita

I always think it’s a swiz that housework counts as so few steps - I’ve noticed the same. In my head I double the number, as after all I have had an upper body workout too! 😉😂

KK

foxgloves

@KajiKita - Yes, my thoughts exactly! Step-count doesn't include all the bending, stretching, reaching, carrying & all the general upper body stuff. Tomorrow, if the weather is ok, I shall be walking around a lake. My stepcount will be a lot higher than it was for yesterday's big cleaning session, yet I bet actual calories burned will be very similar. Fitness trackers can identify cycling & some other sporty activities but not being generally active in a less step-based way.
After I had finished all the cleaning & was standing in the kitchen doing other jobs, my tracker pinged & told me it was 'time to move'. I actually told it out loud where to go!
F

foxgloves

Well, my steps have been utter rubbish today as have spent such a lot of it at my desk, but as it has been my Big Budget Day, I have used lots of brain cells instead of my leg muscles - shame there isn't a tracker for those! So that has been my money saving activity for the day.
I reconciled August's budget & didn't find anything iffy - grocery budget was underspent by just over £9, so I put that towards a Christmas present I ordered for my sister, which arrived this morning. Then I got down to setting October's budget. After deducting all the usual commitments, I was able to pay into our regular saver, the car fund & buy this month's quota of premium bonds with a small amount left (£124 to be precise!) to pay to the savings pots. I'd have liked this to be more, as some of the pots are a lot lower than I'd like, but there were other things to include in the budget including piano tuner, settling the balance on Mr F's old mobile (it sticks in my craw that we are still paying for this when it met its end a while back performing a death leap from the top of the freezer onto the quarry tiles) & some hedge work & gutter clearing. I have estimated the latter, as we are at the waiting to confirm an appointment date stage, so if the actual bill is less, then I shall have a bit extra to add to one of the pots. 
None of that sounds like much in terms of work, but it took me all morning & then I returned for a big filing session after lunch,
Have also wrapped a birthday card containing a gift card in disguise ready to post it via a tracked option tomorrow morning. A faff for a sub-£20 gift, but the last person to whom we sent one never received it, along with the lovely 'Well done' card & so it was almost certainly stolen at some point on it's postal route from North Notts to London. Infuriating! Anyway, the 2 pieces of advice were to track such items as this makes them less attractive to thieves - I suppose it gives info on where exactly the item disappeared.....& from the gift card chain, write down the number of the card instead of the shortened security version which appears on the till receipt as if we'd done that, they could have told us if the card had been used which would have given us the chance to cancel it. So I am doing both this time & hope the person that enjoyed the hot chocolate & lovely cake intended for our nephew for passing his exams is feeling like the thieving weasel they are, I suppose these sort of people exist in a small minority in every organisation.
Anyway, enough of that, it's cat treat time so I had better distribute those before Soot comes to remind me I have been a rubbish meowmy.
Enjoy your Friday nights all,
F x

badmemory

I'm sure if you check your calorie count for the time sitting at your desk you will find that it is higher than the norm.  Even if it my usual "how can I have lost 2p" it is so much easier to find a lost £200.

PennysIntoPounds

Well done on another successful and definitely calorie burning budgeting session. If the price of stamps or postal insecurity keeps going up we'll have to set up a Team Tuppence Britain-wide pass-it-on system!
Fab to be have got a Christmas present done *and* have money left over to put towards it

foxgloves

@PiP - I do have a few presents bought, & of course knitting socks throughout the year for those who I know like them, as well as tarting up jars of homemade preserves contributes too.
F

foxgloves

Hello Saturday Savers, 
Pretty much a day of leisure here, but did pop into town for a few errands first. Good money saving contributions as follows:
*Free parking as decided anything other than supermarket flying visit & PO could wait.
*Bought a different brand of cat food instead of the intended one as it was on offer & £5-75 cheaper for a 40-box.
*Checked price of butterbeans & bought 8 cans as stuffing the freezer full of gigantes plakis seems a good use of tomatoes, esp as Mr F has declared he could 'eat them every week' & would take for lunch also.
*Posted disguised card & giftcard to friend. Explained theft of last one & member of PO staff worked out the cheapest tracked rate which was a lot less than I thought.
*Visited historic local-ish park using our annual parking pass & treated ourselves to breakfast. Budget-neutral as used our Personal Spends. Small saving as we had sufficient loyalty card stamps for a free cappuccino. Enjoyed the fresh air & wildlife & got a much better stepcount than yesterday.
*Avoided gift shop temptation.
*Stopped at village farm shop for potato sack as it's a cheaper way to buy when the weather's cooler & they keep better. Avoided posh biscuits temptation.
*Mr F did today's garden pickings: a few blackberries, courgettes, carrots & tuscan kale.
*Mr F has just done another £30 of surveys. He will have a blimming good cash out tomorrow. 
Well, that's my MSE efforts for today. It's been warm enough for us to sit in the conservatory doing the crossword & chatting. I am now intending to fathom out the black lace section of my shawl. I have set it all up, including almost every stitch marker I own, & I'd just like to get it finished now so I have a lovely new thing to wear now that the weather's cooler. There was actually a very slight frost here first thing, which put me in mind of Ted Hughes' poem, 'October Dawn'.
Ah well, knitting pattern here I come,
F x

Sun_Addict

Mr F does amazingly well with surveys, he must be hitting the right demographic at the moment. It will be my worst ever PA payout this month unless things pick up, just £7.02 ☹️

Do your cats get through a full box of 40 a week? Mine more or less do, although the youngest is very active and still growing. Mine usually have Sh£ba or F£lix AGAIL but they’re quite enjoying Wh!skas at the moment which is a fair bit cheaper. 

foxgloves

Hi @Sun_Addict - They have 2.5 pouches a day & their remaining food intake is an appropriate portion of biscuits (thankfully measured out by me & not Soot!). Therefore we get through 5 pouches a day which adds up tp 35 per week, so yes, mostly we need to buy a 40-box weekly. Every so often, those spare 5s add up to enough for us to get away with a 12-box. They mostly have the persian queen variety or Felix AGAIL. They eat the purple variety but Soot is rather good at getting the jelly off (neither of them as fond of the gravy varieties) & then pesters for another pouch so he can do it again. It amuses us that Ash is the fussier one, as he was feral & given the speed with which he can get into a bin bag, we suspect he was largely living out of bins while homeless. While they are worth every penny, we defo noticed the effect on our grocery budget when we adopted an extra mog.
F

Sun_Addict

The young cat is the fussier one bearing in mind she previously had to share very cheap cat food in one bowl with two other cats in her previous home 😐 It sounds about right for my two then with the 40 pouches a week with the odd week a smaller box purchase. They eat biscuits as well but prefer wet food. Personally I prefer the jelly pouches as the gravy ones are blooming awkward to scrape out the last remaining bits. It’s not me eating them though so the cats might prefer the gravy ones  🤣