Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

Hello Monday Money Savers,
Nothing exciting happening here (when is there?) but I always find Monday a useful day for getting Foxgloves Manor & its inhabitants organised & set up for the week ahead. I've pretty much done all today's planned tasks so intend to reward myself by finishing the last couple of chapters of my current book. Then I must choose another so as to keep up the momentum with my aim to read 100 books this year.
Now, has there been any useful frugal activity? There has - just the usual sort of stuff, really:
*Did this week's laundry using eco settings & being quite parsimonious with washing powder. Was tempted to peg everything out but when I stuck my head out of the door, it seemed too cold for effective drying weather. I think pegging out will be resuming quite soon though & less heated airer & dehumidifier use will reduce electricity use a little.
*Baked a wholemeal loaf.
*Not a no-spend day. Mr F called into a supermarket to purchase some persian queen cat food as Ash has been staging industrial action over their current brand. Amazingly it was on nectar price & less than we have seen it for ages, so he bought 2 boxes (80 pouches). As this will take them into next month, I am going to bump the cost of one of the boxes to March's grocery budget cycle rather than leave us overly low for February Week 4.
*Today's home care hour involved turning out the cupboard where I keep preserving equipment & my recycled jar/bottle stash. Sorted through all the jars & was tough on the less useful ones which went in the glass wheelie. Then sorted lids. I've left various jars out on the dresser as I have been meaning to make carrot & garlic chutney for ages so they will be a visual reminder to get it done probably next week. I also set aside half a dozen annoying little jars which I use for bottling Mr F's favourite garlic pickle. It occurred to me that if I actually made him a batch, it would remove all those fiddly jars to the pantry so I will get that done too. I shan't need to buy much for either recipe. I think maybe just a bottle of extra vinegar, carrots & garlic. While I was sorting out jars, I found a good-sized one from the blue & yellow plastic plant emporium which I have washed & transferred to the presents bag as it will be perfect for the fun stash of 1970s retro sweeties we intend to gift to B-i-L for Christmas. No, I'm not planning THIS early, but if I have an idea & find a useful shopped from home component, it is worth doing to both get ahead AND avoid an unnecessary spend.
*Saved a small plastic box from landfill. Mr F said he'd defo use it were it not covered in something sticky. Sticky stuff removed in 2 wipes (eye-roll) so that's a shopped from home storage box plus a plastic item saved from landfill.
*Did my usual Monday morning budget updates, including reconciling my credit card statement which helpfully landed today.
*Then did my regular Mid-Month Budget Check-in. No nasty surprises, though I did have to do a bit of a hunt to find out why we seemed to have £40 more than I thought we should. It turned out to be a subscription dd which I thought had been collected, but it doesn't actually go out until next week & another small subscription which Mr F set up to be paid from his CC account instead of the vastly more helpful (from a budgeting point of view) current account. Once I'd found these, it turned out we are only £6-75 higher than anticipated. Happy to have a teensy bit more than expected. Shall probably fling it into a Savings Pot. Not worth asking Mr F to change the payment method because we have watched almost everything of interest to us from this TV streamer - just 1 film which I shall watch this week - then it is going to be cancelled & the monthly amount will be paid into our Leisure & Entertainment Savings Pot instead.
*Did a couple of surveys - never seem to be many around on Mondays, but one of them has a 2nd part later this week, so at least I know that's another one coming.
*Sorted tomorrow's packed lunch (leftovers from freezer) & porridge pot. 
*Easy nosebag tonight - chicken chow mein using some of the leftover chicken I divvied up yesterday so I only need to slice up vegetables & cook some noodles. 
And that, m'dears, is the contents of my day. I wonder, if one of these days, I shall do something so exciting, you'll all think you've logged into the wrong diary! At least this week's weather is looking very hopeful for some garden sessions.
Cheers,
F x

PennysIntoPounds

Great saving on the cat food. Though now you've got supplies, watch Ash turn his nose up at it in 5, 4, 3...😁

Never too early to put bits aside for Christmas! I'm very pleased with having three bottles of wine put aside, though whether they'll stay unquaffed till then is another matter!

joedenise

PennysIntoPounds said:

Great saving on the cat food. Though now you've got supplies, watch Ash turn his nose up at it in 5, 4, 3...😁

Never too early to put bits aside for Christmas! I'm very pleased with having three bottles of wine put aside, though whether they'll stay unquaffed till then is another matter!

They definitely wouldn't remain unquaffed in this house (unless it was a wine which we know we don't like!)

Makingabobor2

Surprised your weather wasn't good enough for outside drying. I did 3 loads that I had been saving up for a nice day and managed to get it all 99.9% dry outside, was sunny and breezy here. Last few bits are on the radiator airer in kitchen now.. The only things that are still quite wet, are my bras, as I hand wash them and it takes a while for the padded bits to dry as I didn't get them out till later in the day....bad planning on my part there. 

PennysIntoPounds

joedenise said:

PennysIntoPounds said:

Great saving on the cat food. Though now you've got supplies, watch Ash turn his nose up at it in 5, 4, 3...😁

Never too early to put bits aside for Christmas! I'm very pleased with having three bottles of wine put aside, though whether they'll stay unquaffed till then is another matter!

They definitely wouldn't remain unquaffed in this house (unless it was a wine which we know we don't like!)

We do have ample supplies for ourselves @joedenise, don't worry 😁 The aldo wine of the week deals are very good though so nice to get a tasty wine in for gifts early enough in the year that hopefully if recipients shop there they'll have forgotten that it was temporarily four or five quid not the usual eight or nine quid 🥂

badmemory

I suspect most people don't even realise they are paying a lot more for things sometimes.  I do bits of shopping sometimes for a friend when her carers don't show up & have been shocked at how much she has been prepared to pay for exactly the same item.  And if she is handing out money to the carer the way she tries to with me, well!  She is only 60 & they want her to go into a care home but she won't.  

Then I have another friend who will use a co-op card but will not use a Tesco clubcard, it is obviously beneath him.  I used to take his receipts & get the points, but he doesn't even get those now.   But the co-op card seems to give you discounts to buy rubbish so mine is heading for the bin.  It did come in handy back when I bought my funeral & the T&Cs were different & it gave me over £200 to spend.  Still all good things come to an end i suppose.

foxgloves

@badmemory - I like our Co-op loyalty card scheme. For some reason, the Co-ops in our town are all part of the Lincolnshire Co-op (despite not being in Lincs) which kept its own dividend system. The only difference is that the name has changed to 'cashback card' rather than 'dividend card'. No other changes though. Points are earned on every transaction with extra ones on local products & can be spent at any time. Every November, all members get a Christmas bonus which is calculated according to how many points have been earned that year. It's worth doing & we use ours to buy our Christmas wine & cava plus sometimes some other festive bits depending on how much we have on our card.
Like the person you mentioned refusing a Tesco card, it always amazes me how often we hear shoppers in our local Co-op say 'No, they don't have a card' & 'No, they don't want one' as some of them according to staff 'are in here every day'. It comes down to choice, of course, but it would feel to me like refusing free money.
When we first moved here over 20 years ago, we were able to convert our points to cash & pay it into a little share account. I put this towards festival tickets for a couple of years by doing this before the system changed.
I much prefer the loyalty cards from which points collected can be spent as money. 
F

teapot2

Sadly 'my' Co-op has stopped offering points on purchases which I used to collect and then use for money off when I'd amassed a decent amount.  I do have their app but most of the weekly offers for me are for items I don't or won't buy.  I do occasionally get an offer of £1 off a purchase with no minimum spend and I'll use that.

Suffolk_lass

I've just looked at the East of England Coop to see what ours do. I don't think they made a profit last year as I don't recall receiving a dividend, but it might have been because my total was under £5, the minimum they pay on

Makingabobor2

Our local one just gives offers every week and you can pick 2 of them. Then some products are labeled with special prices if you have a card. Even at reduced prices, most things in there are expensive, although I do often find some good orange stickered flowers or bread.