Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

Sun_Addict

Ouch to the car bill, good you have the money saved but still annoying to part with it. 

Mr SA used to get through countless flasks when he was working. He was forever dropping them. 

Had to laugh at Ash and his stand off 🤣

ladyholly

There is one cat round here that will not move while Bear barks and lunges at him. Him, the cat, will also hide behind bushes and fences so I cant see him but Bear will smell him and be ready for his performance. I am sure he must wake people first thing in the morning.

Debsnewbudget

We keep a water pistol by the back door to see off the cat that terrorises our 2.  

He even started to hiss and growl at me when I tried to shoo him off one time, so water pistol it is.

I do wonder what his owner thinks if he goes home with a wet patch !!

foxgloves

Morning Campers! Later up this morning as Mr F kindly brought me breakfast in bed, so I decided I'd just finish the last 3 chapters of my book. Cats seized the opportunity to get on the bed & pretend they were FAR too deeply asleep to be moved. Soot is very good at faking sleep, but we are used to such things as our first cat had the mind of a criminal genius.
@Debsnewbudget- It's a shame that these marauding neighbourhood bully cats are often aggressive because their owners haven't bothered to deal with their troublesome baubles. 
@ladyholly - Not all cats seem bothered by dogs. A common behaviour is to sit just out of reach to taunt the dog knowing it can't reach them. Our first family cat (back in the 1980s) was only small but once turned on a scottie dog who chased her. She stopped dead in her tracks (as did he, as it took him by surprise), then turned around, arched her back, puffed up her tail & charged at him. He turned tail & fled! She was so chuffed with herself when she came home!
@PennysIntoPounds - Yes, at least that car money is in place to pay. I just hate seeing big loads of horrid zeros on the Savings Pots spreadsheet.
@Makingabobor2 - Yes, do find that flask, as motorway services coffee shops are usually silly money. My dear friend who sadly died a few years ago used to call them 'Tea & Pee' stops & I remember saying 'Only pee' where I'm concerned!
@Sun_Addict - Tbf, this flask has lasted a long time. When I bought it (a bargain from the shop which rhymes with 'toys'), Mr F couldn't believe I'd bought one with a glass interior. He said it wouldn't last five minutes, but it actually served us well over several years of camping, countless outings & picnics as well as being taken to work on occasion & used to keep leftover kettle water hot. 

Anyway, today's activities:
*Not a no-spend day as Mr F has popped out for a paper, a couple more things from our festive food list, a new scratching box for Soot, as landing carpet destruction definitely escalates when he is without one. he also took the stretchy plastic for recycling & picked up the free Waitbl00m paper as I like to enter their crossword comp. Has anyone on here ever won it, I wonder? I never have & have been doing it for years, also my Dad & nephew for a while. Let's see who on here wins the £100 voucher first. My money's on @PennysIntoPounds, for what it's worth!
*Bed linen all dried overnight on heated airer which surprised me as it included a thick mattress cover, but our dehumidifyer also helps. Nice to get up & promptly switch 2 things off.
*Postie brought me 2 items for product testing - I'd forgotten about. Both full-size so will keep my toiletries stash going a bit longer. 
*Was recalled for the 2nd half of a survey so that was another £7.50 into my Dec PA earnings, currently at £29-96 once everyone has paid me. 
*Mr F's cooking night & he is going to experiment with the bacon ribs he bought as part of our last very good mix & match deal from our local butcher. Another bonus is that it is a large box out of the freezer. He is still saying we can fit a turkey in there. I am adamant that we cannot. I only just managed to fit 4 portions of chicken soup in there this week & they were all rectangular containers which tesselate, not a sizeable item of girthy poultry!
*Still to do (next job) is giving our conservatory plants some TLC. I do want them all to survive the winter. Nothing looks to be on its way out, but all could do with a trim, especially a weird tropical plant my Mum gave me which has quite alien looking 'flowers'. I have no idea what it is as have lost the label since she died. Even my very green-fingered allotmenty friend has no idea what it is, but I'd like to keep it, so time for a little session of effort.
Then I intend to spend the day on leisure stuff - read the paper, start my new library book ('Starveacre'), knit back more of that frogged section of shawl, knit a bit more sock, do the quick cryptic crossword & maybe play some Christmas piano music. Honestly, I really need to get that out in October so that it's worth hearing by Christmas, lol!
Stay safe all of my readers who are in the red storm-tossed areas, @ladyholly & @DawnW, I'm thinking it could be pretty rum where you are, maybe @Baileys_Babe too. Wind getting up here now & raining. So dull & grey outside, is it any wonder that 2 sets of paws haven't been outside since first thing this morning. 
Everyone else, take care.
F x

Makingabobor2

Think you are right to have a leisure day today.   I am doing the same, calling it my Self Care day.  It is truly awful out there. Our fish pond looks like its ready to overflow.  
Enjoy your day. 

DawnW

OK here @foxgloves apart from being kept awake by the wind. Others locally and further afield are not so lucky, with fallen trees and damaged roofs etc. The rain is likely to render our little town an island again though, Not planning to go anywhere apart from a brief dog walk if it stops raining (I don't mind, but the dog doesn't 'do' rain). OH wants to visit a friend who lives a few miles away tomorrow morning, but we will have to see if we have become surrounded by water,

PennysIntoPounds

Aw thanks for the good win vibes

Glad you're still enjoying the cryptic crossword 😊

EssexHebridean

Yes - it’s a grim day here too Mrs F, we did nip out in a bit of a lull in the rain earlier, just to pop to T’s for Mr EH’s paper, and called in at a couple of other places while down that end of town before walking back, mostly managed to avoid getting wet but returned very blown about! 

Baileys_Babe

Thanks for thinking of me @foxgloves we are visiting friends for the weekend and have escaped the worst, still not great here a tree has come down damaging the village hall.

2Scratters

Morning Peeps,
We have woken up to lovely blue skies and the wind seems to have calmed. We have a few damaged fence panels with missing pieces of waney laps. DH won't be fixing them anytime soon as the weather is not good enough for him to be out there any length of time. Too cold and too breezy for someone with lung disease. 
I have been home for a week from a lovely warm holiday with the ladies in Tenerife. I'm not sure how you get to this age and miss the damn plane  it wasn't like we had got stuck in traffic and were delayed we simply didn't pay any attention and sat chattering away. I so laughed at the situation till I had to pay the extra £100 for another flight 7 hours later. This story was not planned of being on a bucket list but it's been ticked off anyway 
During that time DH did not check my car in the cold snap. He prefers not to drive it, so when I came to use it, yep, it had a flat battery. £207  and that was no labour charge. I'd only moved £150 plus what was left in my account and had to move another chunk of money over to pay the bill. At least there is a pot for occasions like this. 
I have bought some more coffee beans as they are likely to go up due to problems with them being grown. They may last us a year then will see what the situation is like then.

UU toiletries is still going on and I am definitely SABLE (stuff acquired beyond life expectancy) in a particular brand of perfume and body lotions cream box with black writing. This notification to self came about when putting like with like and this is the end result. Definitely 4 figure numbers. I'm just thinking how much it is saving me now :0 I am also working my way away from liquid shower gels and shampoo and moving towards the solid bars of cleaning products that are a lot kinder to ourselves and less plastic. Less bulk when storing too and am SABLE in that as well. Just need a solid hair conditioner that I will ask for as a gift. These types of items are handy too when travelling from certain airports as they are not classed as liquid and are not likely to get damaged or damage contents when cases are thrown around, nor do they take up space and are less weight when travelling light 

My budget pots are online I use 2 banks mainly for bills 1 pays all the DDs so I get some money back each month and has sufficient funds to last 12 months and is watched annually. I have previously moved money to a good savings account without it denting it and used that for other savings. If needed next year which I think I will do is not to move that money out but let the balance increase naturally so we do not need to add anymore extra to it hopefully for the next 2 years. As we each have vehicles of our own and to keep things simple for DH he has a van and a motorbike (which I don't ride pillion on this one) each of our pots is titled and how much is needed each month. EG bike and van 265pcm. This covers everything to do with each one i.e fuel, tax, insurance, MOT, servicing, tyres, breakdown cover. This does get tweaked each year but rounded up. Big jobs that need doing ie Tax and insurance I have managed to get them separated just to help the budget pot be able to have enough in as and when they arise for payment. It has taken me over 4 years to get them all to this point but it works for us. Some pots have a target limit and when that is achieved that money is diverted to another pot to build up.

Hope everyone has managed to avoid any severe damage.

2 Scratters xx