Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

EssexHebridean

Great to be able to make a "cash neutral" clothes purchase like that isn't it - I've now got my eye on building up my tech replacement pot with a view to ensuring that when my phone needs replacing (hopefully not for a while yet!) I have a good cushion there to avoid needing to raid savings too much! That's where my survey earnings will be heading for a while! 

Humdinger1

@foxgloves you are never dull! Please keep posting.   I talked about this on my diary today: how moving out of magical thinking is essential to money management.   Settling down to a real quiet sustainable life is so worthwhile; the bubbly and delusions are all too frequent and lie behind many diaries in my view.   Onwards and upwards love Humdinger xx 

Suffolk_lass

foxgloves said:

@Suffolk_lass - What a great name for a future cat! I find the history of the witch trials very interesting & have read a lot about that period of history. I don't think that the WG was even all that particularly religious, but saw an opportunity to make some money. It's an important part of women's history & shouldn't be forgotten. Mr F says that certain sections of my bookshelves, plant knowledge & large preserving cauldron would have been sufficient to ensure my own demise! Really, it was about petty local feuds, jealousies & prejudice against those women who were perceived as 'different'. It did indeed all begin at Manningtree & East Anglia was hit hard. An audacious thing, as so close to the age of enlightenment, but it followed years of civil war  neighbour against neighbour & mistrust. I see a similar thing today with the growth of the tinfoil hat brigade & a collective need to 'blame' which is utterly detached from reality. The case of the Lowestoft witches is also very interesting - I have a book on that case in my collection by a local historian. 

Did you read the children's book 'Pyewacket' by Rosemary Weir when you were a little girl? I think you & I are a similar vintage. I borrowed it from the library when I was about 7 & loved it. He was a characterful battle-scarred cat with, I think, with just one eye & half an ear missing. It was published in the late 1960s, I think, so will be long out of print. I think I will maybe have to part with some of my November Personal Spends to procure a 2nd hand copy to re-read! 
F x

Ooh, I didn't know about Rosemary Weir's book, I might have to ask for that for Christmas (It's only available from America on the sites I have checked [with $18 or similar P&P]). It gets 4.8-5* reviews!

I read a fictional book by Barbara Erskine when our bookclub started - we tried to periodically read a local female author or a story set locally. Hiding from the Light; it was a sort of spooky contemporary ghost story. It really sparked my interest. His ghost is meant to be in Manningtree, along with some of the women. I think he was there in 1644 so in the English CW when governance allowed him to self declare and no Parliament to endorse or sanction him. As you say, completely incompatible with the Age of Reason or Enlightenment that followed a generation later. 

I know you like a good story, we also read the first of a series by Philippa Gregory about an ordinary woman; Tidelands, set in a time of superstition and malice that also included a witch "drowning" - I really enjoyed it (in contrast to her red and white queen novels that I found a little "worthy") - there are a few more now, multi-generational things and to her credit, a degree of historical accuracy in the stories. Anyway. I will read on now, having replied...

Suffolk_lass

Oh yes, we are pretty similar in our approach to many things but I am MUCH older than you (I now receive my state pension so 6 and a half years, I think). The age difference seems nothing now. Some of my friends locally are in their seventies and I still don't accept my body is not 46. At school though, I might have escorted you round in your first year senior school as one of the Upper Sixth!

I was no wiser than a teenager with all the "I want a..." for many years too. For instance, it took several to knock some of my "I've got this" arrogance off me on this forum. I've always done the grocery challenge and it took literally years to get my housekeeping bill down to a sensible level. I was still spending well over £400 a month for several years when I thought I was doing well. To be fair I had almost halved it, but it is more like a generous £200-250 now, most months. I think with the feeling of plenty I get from having my state pension arrive every four weeks, I am honestly in danger of backsliding. I bought a bottle of something lovely yesterday that was not on offer and frankly, exhorbitant. FOMO as only three left. At least I did not buy all of them...

And I am finding my last green pickings of the tomatoes are ripening surprisingly quickly on the windowsill in a plastic tray, by the way. It looks as though another 2-3 jars of passata might be realised.

Makingabobor2

I also wondered where you were & if you were ok. I find your daily events really grounding & certainly never dull. I aspire to be more like you. Think I need a bigger garden & a pantry though....lol

Moorviews

I find that reading your diary is a lovely calming activity. You are wonderfully (but with sensible boundaries) open about your doings and thoughts. I am always either learning something, or getting some validation that I am not alone in the things that I enjoy or spend time on. Your lists demonstrate just how much can be achieved in a day with good organisation and willpower and I very much enjoy the general discussions. Thank you for continuing to write 😊

Some of my tomato plants decided to ripen their fruit and grow even more once they were under threat of being pulled out. Even now I have some fruit ripening on the Sweet Million plant although all the other plants have been removed. My peppers have, rather bizarrely, grown a few nice fruit now too. The slugs and snails ate the summer ones. The downside is that I now have whitefly - only the second time ever and presumably because I have kept all these plants going. The joys of growing your own!

2Scratters

Well this week we had a "free shopping" spend. I had saved a pound an item from our own extra store cupboard items and those from my parents. It was a total of £90. I was going to save it for Christmas but why do that when it is already saved up for and actually won't be OTT anyway. The full shop was £97 odd and there was a voucher or 2 to bring it down some more so the odd pennies were all I needed from my purse. I have started a new list of use ups as there was a jar of coffee that I never buy so will be putting by £1 a cup when I have one. There are some items that will never be purchased again and they too will be added to the next save up list. I have kept a box of stash of toiletries toothpaste, soap, shower gel etc to the point now the box is primarily bars of soap  These items alone make them SABLE (stuff acquired beyond life expectancy) That would add up to quite a pretty penny. Yet they will still be worth £1each into the pot. Why do we do this to ourselves??

2 Scratters xx

foxgloves

@Suffolk_lass - I have read Philippa Gregory's 'Tidelands' trilogy - My sister recommended the first one & I bought them as I knew I would read them again. I used to read Barbara Erskine a long time ago, but haven't read the one you mention, only earlier ones, so thanks for the recommendation. I shall look for it in the library & charity bookshop, as I know the subject matter will be of interest to me. 
Re age  differences.....my best friend is 10 years older than me. My other best friend who sadly died a few years ago, was the same age as me, but I didn't discern any age-related difference between them. I consider everyone within about a decade of my current age to be 'of similar vintage' to myself. I think translating age differences into school years highlights how a gap which would have seemed enormous back then, seems like nothing now. When I was doing my O-levels, Mr F was just ending primary school, so I'd have had no interest whatsoever in the annoying little clever-trousers (& he would have been one, I can assure you!)
F

foxgloves

@Moorviews & @Makingabobor2 - Thank-you. I'm glad that you find something of interest in my ramblings. When I began my first DFW diary, it was both to keep myself focused financially, but also to show anybody out there still trapped in spendy years of their own, that even very entrenched, long-standing bad habits can be changed. I was 46 when I paid off the last chunk of debt & still had to take out a planned loan after that because we still didn't have any meaningful savings in place. As I've progressed, I have come to enjoy the discussions we have on here about all sorts of elements of the domestic economy & that it is a helpful, friendly online community.
@2Scratters - I love working my way through a stash & like your idea of rewarding yourself with £1 when you don't have to buy an item. We still have loads of anti-mould sprays which we brought back in a big crate of household products from my parents' house. I am not aware that they even had a mould problem......although that could have been because of all the anti-mould gunk they were spraying around! Good not to waste stuff, anyway. What a waste of plastic to bin those bottles off without even using the product up. I remember when a great aunt died years ago, she left a large drawer absolutely packed out with individual bars of soap. I think she must have received them as gifts over a couple of decades.
F

badmemory

Re best friends - mine is nearly 20 years younger than me & I have always felt around the same age & have known her since I moved back here over 30 years ago, so ages about 30/50.  Unfortunately the last few years have not been kind to her & she now seems older than me.  Actually I am rather worried as I no longer have real time with her & I am worried that at 60 she now has dementia.  She has no family & her doctors & carers want her to go in a home but she won't agree which must mean she still cannot be too bad.  I worry that something nasty is going to happen & I am going to land up feeling guilty, but I have no idea what I can do!  Sorry for the unloading.