Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

PennysIntoPounds

Festive hamper sounds beautifully decorated, and what a good skip find from Mr F!

Hope all the works go smoothly tomorrow, spending the time getting ahead with presents sounds perfect

foxgloves

Hi @Makingabobor2, My strawberry plants have always just been left out in situe over winter. The only ones which I put in the coldframe are newly potted up runners. Others may do differently but that's what happens in my garden.
F x

Makingabobor2

foxgloves said:

Hi @Makingabobor2, My strawberry plants have always just been left out in situe over winter. The only ones which I put in the coldframe are newly potted up runners. Others may do differently but that's what happens in my garden.
F x

So I don't need to cut them back or anything then?

foxgloves

Well, I'd generally just give them a bit of a haircut while clearing/cutting back the garden in Autumn.....just to trim off unwanted runners, old leaves, etc.

Suffolk_lass

foxgloves said:

Well, I'd generally just give them a bit of a haircut while clearing/cutting back the garden in Autumn.....just to trim off unwanted runners, old leaves, etc.

Me too, but I've also left this until Spring.

foxgloves

Evening all - well, it feels like evening. I've just been down the garden to empty the kitchen compost bucket & dusk is falling fast.
Not such a productive day today as I've had workmen here from early afternoon doing a major cut of our tall hedges & some gutter clearing, but still a decent amount of budget helping activity. I always count just generally being organised as 'budget-friendly' as it always seems to save money in the long run. Anyway, here goes:
*I overestimated the cost of today's work by £25, so will be able to assign that elsewhere.
*Transferred next week's planned meals into my diary. Chatted through the meal plans I did yesterday up to the end of November with Mr F last night & he is all on board with the need to make up for having frontloaded this month's budget with some canny planning & shopping lists.
*Baked a batch of bread rolls.
*Started making a sourdough loaf.
*Will be using the last of the (non-frozen) leftover roast pork tonight, as am making pork & sweetcorn hash. Decided to serve it with carrots as we seem to have quite a lot of them.
*Made tomorrow's packed lunch & breakfast.
*Did the ironing - as usual only the items which really needed it.....which was 4 items, a result for me as not a task I enjoy. Listened to an interesting R4 programme while I was doing it.
*Dug out all the Christmas cards - new ones bought in the January sales, those bought more recently from an artist & a local charity we like to support, plus a few leftover from last year. Counted them up & decided that the pack of artist-drawn ones can be put away for next year. We do love to send & receive cards......e.cards may be clever & pretty but they don't 'do it' for me in the way that a pile of post landing with a gentle plop on the doormat does. Found a little box to put them in along with my address book & a pen so I can write a few daily. Wrote 7 today to get started.
*A little more present knitting over my lunch hour.
*Did a couple of surveys.
*Entered a competition.
I am now going to do a bit more recipe copying, as this project keeps falling by the wayside & I would very much like it finished so I no longer have a big untidy pile of papers looking at me accusingly - "We're still here, you know. You SAID you were going to copy a few of us into your nice new book every day, but we are still waiting....." 
So I'm off to do that, then I might reward my efforts with a nice hot bubble bath & a hair wash. Still 3 days of my Megally Productive Week left, so am hoping I will hit the ground running tomorrow. Mr F is no longer croaky & I am wondering how on earth I have avoided getting his lergy. I do hope the fates aren't saving mine up for Christmas.
Have a cosy evening all,
F x

EssexHebridean

It's been gloomy down here ALL day Mrs F - yesterday there wasn't sufficient light at any stage through the day for our garden solar lights to come on at all, but at least it was dry and gloomy - today has been drizzly unrelenting grey-ness! 

I'm afraid we opted some years ago to switch from sending cards at Christmas to a charity donation instead - this followed a year when we worked out that somewhere around 50% of the cards we sent either took at least a month to be delivered by Royal Fail (meaning they were delivered after christmas) or weren't delivered at all. 

Something in your post reminds me that I've not made sweetcorn fritters for a very long while - may need to add those to the meal plan for next week as we have eggs at the moment! 

amber03

It’s so dear to send cards now, I didn’t send many last year and it will be the same this year. Remember growing up, used to love the postman bringing loads of Xmas cards, which didn’t take nearly a month to arrive either.x

Sun_Addict

My Christmas card list has dwindled considerably over the past few years. I used to love writing them out with Christmas carols playing in the background selecting the right card for the right person. I used to make a real occasion of it. Now it takes me 15 minutes tops 🙁 

foxgloves

I think whereas pretty much everybody (except seasonal scrooges) used to send cards, the pandemic, iffy deliveries & postage costs have resulted in a broader range of approach. 
Back when I was working, knew lots of people & before most of my relatives died & some of Mr F's became estranged, we sent about 60 cards & received the same, which all went off to Mum afterwards for her crafting. We send about 40 now, but I can see this dwindling as people exiting my card list are not being replaced by new people - for 2 such chatty & friendly people, you wouldn't believe how unsociable we are!
Agree postage costs are likely to be hitting card sending. This will be the first year I won't be buying Christmas design stamps - solely because it will save money to use stamps from the 3 sheets I bought just before 2nd class prices last increased. I have plenty of those left. I almost always have stamps in, as I like writing letters.

Right, am nicely caffienated so must get started on my day. Am still on my week of extra productivity, so am keen to get going.
F