Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

milann

Plans sounding excellent again.

rtandon27

Always such a bonus when shopping from home trumps giving someone else your hard earned pennies!  So nice that MrF is so on board with the grand plan!

foxgloves

Evening m'dears,
A late one from me, fresh from the bath tub & very intent on an early night so as to be hopefully raring to go tomorrow morning.
Well, a very pleasant Christmas break has come to an end. Mr F returns to work first thing tomorrow & I need to get back to my routines. 
We decided on a lazy day today so I put our meal in the slow cooker at 9.45 am then we decamped to the village farm shop cafe for a leisurely breakfast with the Everyman crossword. Used our Personal Spends so budget-neutral. We ignored all the tempting wares & just bought birdfood as planned.
Finished up various leftovers for lunch, read & completed my jigsaw. 
Haven't written a list for tomorrow, but I shall defo need to spend some time at my desk doing budget updates, of which there are quite a lot, writing up the notes & actions from our annual Money Summit & allocating January's payments to the Savings Pots, which I deliberately left until after our meeting. 
Until tomorrow,
F x

foxgloves

@PennysIntoPounds - I did consider such a pot as you describe, but decided that I will be as equally motivated by seeing these small wins translate into nicely growing figures on our Savings Pots spreadsheet. Like yourself & @Blackcats however, I am a fan of the positive effects of small aggregate gains.
F

Makingabobor2

Its nice to be getting back to normal isn't it?  Not nice weather for those who have to go to work though. DH had to take car, as too nasty to go on his bike. 

badmemory

One of the joys of being retired  Looking out of the window & saying doesn't that look pretty, rather than saying I hope I will get into work alright.  I used to walk so it was wellies at the ready & I realised last night that I have no idea where they are.

Makingabobor2

badmemory said:

One of the joys of being retired  Looking out of the window & saying doesn't that look pretty, rather than saying I hope I will get into work alright.  I used to walk so it was wellies at the ready & I realised last night that I have no idea where they are.

Yes I like being retired

foxgloves

Afternoon Campers,
Naturally poor old Mr F returned to work to deal with the instant rolling out of flood prevention measures. That meant an even earlier than usual drive to work in the dark with plenty of swirling snow - thankfully this turned to rain after an hour or so & washed away what had settled overnight. It's not currently raining, but Soot still refused to go out until I lobbed his afternoon treats out of the back door when of course he followed in hot pursuit! So Mr F came back to wfh & although I have made inroads into getting back to my routines, I was side-tracked by Postie bringing me a solicitor's letter which requires copying documents & getting them officially certified. Was relieved to see that unlike the last time I needed to do this, our town post office now offers this service at a cost of £12-75 so I have been sorting out everything for hopefully being able to get it done on Friday morning when I shall be in town. I can apparently get the certification done at any local solicitor's office, but I imagine it will cost more than £12-75 & require an appointment so I am happy to go with the PO. 
So that was today's plans a little off kilter, but nevertheless I have managed to get a fair bit of useful money saving stuff done:
*2 loads of laundry done on eco setting - now drying on heated airer with added ooomph from the dehumidifer.
*Made a batch of dough for tonight's pizza & a batch of rolls. Remembered to defrost 2 little pots of sweetcorn & chopped peppers I froze for adding to next pizza topping, which will accompany the tuna & tomatoes.
*Did 3 minor surveys.
*Did my Monday morning budget updates & there was a fair amount to do as I didn't do them last week, when I think I must have forgotten it was Monday! (Probably in a surfeit of Christmas cake & ginger wine brain fug!) January's grocery budget is looking strong, especially as it is a 5-week shopping month. We have plenty of food in & have meal planned up to the end of the month. In the spirit of Project Surbiton, sticking to all strands of our monthly budget is important because if we overspend on groceries, that will be mopped up when I reconcile January's & set February's budget & will be a sum of money that won't then be available for augmenting the Savings Pots. I also wrote up the notes from our recent Annual Money Summit, including things for each of us to action this month.
I then allocated January's Savings Pots money which I wanted to delay until after we'd had our meeting, so it was good to get that done. The amount set aside had also increased a little from underspends on both the amount I budgeted for Christmas cattery stay & our traditional New Year's Eve take-away curry. I prioritised the Pots based on need so that meant the biggest share to the Car Maintenance Pot as we have some imminent advisory work to do from the MOT/service. I also paid the Holiday Pot (non-negotiable as I have a strict payment schedule in place for being able to pay balances & cattery fees at the right time), the Dentist/Optician/Meds Pot & a small addition to the Clothes Pot as I have a tidy mind & wanted to squeak it over a certain amount. I will be looking to do more number-crunching on the Savings Pots before my next Big Budget Day on the 27th, as Mr F is owed a wodge of back-pay & it will be welcomed with open arms for providing a boost.
I had thought I might get around to sorting out a pile of Christmas salvage this afternoon but I will do that tomorrow instead. I already have a good list of festive stuff I defo shan't need to buy for this year, so hopefully I will be adding to it as I sort through what I have leftover & the stuff I've salvaged. That means the big annual seed-box inventory will probably not be done until Wednesday, but no matter. My only goal for this week, really, is getting back to my routines running Foxgloves Manor & now, of course, getting those docs sorted out & certified for posting back to the solicitor. Anything else will be a bonus.
OK, that's me done. Am off to see if those bread rolls are ready to bake. It's a really chilly day. Central heating has been on pretty much all day & was only up to 17.5 by lunchtime! I've got a warm handknitted wrap on pinned with the lovely silver shawl pin Mr F bought me for Christmas so am not feeling the cold, but it will be felt in our next bill from the Octopods, I'm sure!
Stay cosy, if all else fails, I find a hot water bottle tucked up behind my back is a surefire winner.
F xx

Blackcats

I was reminded of MrFG not buying bargain wrapping paper because it wasn't actually needed.  I found myself picking up a bargain jar of mincemeat and reminding myself that  it isn't a bargain if I don't even like the stuff.  Last time I bought a reduced price jar I ended up using it for bread and butter pudding which was actually very tasty but then so is non-mincemeated bread and butter pudding.

Makingabobor2

It seems to be hard getting back to normal this year. I haven't done all the things I wanted to do today. Not sure if its the weather or the after effects of my row with DH yesterday. I hate it when we row.