Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

Humdinger1

I've finally had time to sit down and immerse myself in your latest doings @foxgloves! I can't rush through as want to savour every word but that means deferring thr pleasure too often right now.  I'm now up-to-date and grounded; thank you as ever.  Onwards and upwards love Humdinger xx 

foxgloves

Thanks for all your comments & contributions. 
@ziggy2407 - My new cover isn't anything special. It isn't even brilliant sewing as my sewing machine was playing up, gobbling thread, having hissy fits, I think it needs servicing. I didn't even do a hem as I used the one already on the piece of fabric. So I just made a long tube from the rough measurements of the old one & tbh, it will do the job. It isn't a water-repellent finish, just cotton, but there is sufficient fabric left to knock out another one if necessary. My main aim is not using the House & Garden Pot. Re libraries, yes, I am a big supporter & agree that as with everything, whether libraries or local shops, cafes, if we don't use them, then we can't complain when they close. Take it steady with your step goal. It must be very frustrating, but as you say, you don't want to wipe out your energy levels while you are recuperating.

@Blackcats - We are certainly expecting them both to be weighed. They are there at the moment, so doubtless I shall soon find out if Soot has lost any, despite him looking exactly the same to me.

@Humdinger1 - Thank-you for your encouraging comments about my diary. I can only offer my usual down-to-earth daily doings (with occasional acerbity) - I am always very upfront that mine is not the diary for anyone wishing to read tales of drama & derring-do.
F

foxgloves

Hello Sunbeams,
Another lovely day. Soot & Ash are at the vet as I type. They took an exceedingly dim view of being captured & put in their carriers. Soot did a forward roll to escape Mr F's grasp, followed by a backward one to extricate himself from the second attempt but then he was all out of gymnastic moves & was swiftly banged up. Ash ran & hid behind the curtains, was caught easily enough, but decided he would stick one paw out of the carrier for as long as possible so that we couldn't shut it. Eventually, they set off! Fingers crossed. Right, so nothing money-saving about a double vet visit, what else can I offer today?
*Home care hour consisted of dusting our bedroom, wiping all the upstairs windowsills, washing down the front door & freshening up the 2 containers which stand either side with a new primula each, removal of spent winter bedding & a good watering session as lots of Spring bulbs now coming up.
*Potted up the jalapeno babies, covered with re-purposed plastic beer glass cloches & moved to back bedroom window sill.
*Cracked on with some of my March seed-sowing in the greenhouse: 2 types of lettuce (some sown in modules & some in a trough for cut & come again early leaves), Roma tomatoes (now in heated propagator), red mustard micro-greens, rudbeckia, lavatera 'silver cup', larkspur, 3 types of cosmos & 2 types of hollyhocks. I haven't been dipping into the House & Garden Pot for any of these - 1 packet was saved seed, 3 packets from a neighbour, 6 were free on my gardening magazine & 2 were leftover from last year. It is very much an aim of Project Surbiton that we use up what we already have to allow Savings Pots to build.
*Did meal plans for next week. Built around Mr F wanting to cook an Indian spiced chicken on Saturday night, using leftovers from that, then a combination of other things, prioritising recipes which won't require us to buy much in the way of ingredients. Will also be using up some more freezer meals.
*Jacket potato night tonight - Mr F is making Epic Man-Stew & I am having tuna & red onion melt on mine with  cucumber. 
*Mr F has booked in our car for its new tyres tomorrow. The price is £21 less than originally quoted which will be less of a hit to the Car Maintenance Pot.
Well, I think that is all for today. I shall have a little tidy round & await the return of Mr F & the 2 monkeys. Looks like another decent day tomorrow so I'm aiming to get outside & investigate the free plants which have overwintered in the cold frame. Some of them are only just starting into regrowth so it will be interesting to see what I have. There is SO much to do out there, but a garden is never finished, so it's just a case of getting out into nature every day & doing a bit at a time. Not a no-spend day with the vet & also a petrol fill-up for the car, but there's not a lot I can do about either of those. Certainly no other money has leaked from the Foxgloves Manor Counting House today.
Love F x

Sun_Addict

I bet Soot and Ash will be expecting compensation for their ordeal by way of treats on their return. 

foxgloves

For those readers who follow the exploits of Soot & Ash, I thought I'd just do a quick report on their vet trip. Do ignore if you are not fussed about felines! The visit itself was fine - £45 for an annual check-up including booster jabs, so only the fact that we have two of the rascals made it more expensive at £90. Never mind, we do have a Meow Pot. The journey, however was just awful. There are currently road construction works on the A-road parallel to our village, starting at the village roundabout we all have to traverse to get in or out. Our town gridlocks at rush hour anyway, but the construction works are making it much worse & for more of the day. Then just to pop a cherry on it, an RTA closed the local stretch of northbound A1 & put the southbound down to 1 lane. As always happens in these situations, all the traffic was re-routed through our town so by the time Mr F & the cats were trying to get home, everywhere was gridlocked. He decided to come home by a circuitous route known mostly only to locals which cuts out most of the pinch points, but unfortunately this route had obviously flagged on an articulated lorry driver's satnav & he got stuck on the TINY little old bridge & backed up the traffic there too. Finally the lorry managed to inch through, but by the time they got home, the poor cats had spent a long time shut in their carriers, Mr F was really worried about them & I was too. They were all pleased to be home & Soot & Ash very glad to see their dinner!
Now, as for the weigh-in......it was a new vet & he explained how cats' body condition is based on a 9-point scale, with 9 the most severely obese & the lower numbers malnourished to underweight....golden number seems to be about halfway. Soot had gained 20g since his last visit in March last year. Vet was fine with that. Said he is well into middle age now (he's 10) & is in good nick. I actually think if he'd been weighed 2 or 3 months ago, he'd have shown a heavier weight as we have defo cut down their food. Ash, who has also been on the new food regime because we thought he was starting to get a bit chunky, had lost 20g. Vet said Soot is a '7' on the weight chart & Ash a '6'. That was a surprise because I think Ash looks really trim now, but apparently he is still classed as 'slightly overweight'. Nevertheless he was pleased with both of them, said he wasn't going to tell us never to feed them treats, but did say it's worth keeping an eye on their weight - said they'd generally expect overweight cats to live about 2 years less. They behaved very well even though they had a very thorough going over. Will see if we can get Soot down a little more for next time. Ash will need a dental (which we did expect) around November so we will plan for that. 
F

foxgloves

And here are today's budget-friendly offerings:
*Wrote grocery shopping list.
*Did a few financials - mostly moving funds around & paying planned transactions off a credit card.
*Tweaked meal plans as realised that having a lovely bath & hairwash this afternoon was more enticing than making a tamale pie. I shall make it tomorrow instead. In the meantime, we'll be eating pesto pasta - the last pot of my homemade pesto from last summer's very generous basil crop. I love that it continued to provide a taste of summer right through the winter. It doesn't mind being frozen at all.
*Reduced the thermostat to 18 degrees from 18.5. Only a small difference, but it will show in the next bill & the next stage will be switching it off at the end of March. If we have chilly evenings in April, we can use the living room stove. I'm mindful of wanting to build up more credit for next Winter than we had going into this one.
*Checked propagator for overnight happenings & found the aubergines are coming up, so yay to that!
*Home care hour - Nothing. Was doing other stuff & tbh, cba. Will do extra tomorrow.
*Garden progress - Another combination of free plants & clearing. Didn't get quite as much done as planned, as a couple of irises needed more careful attention than a basic chop, but still a worthwhile session. replanted the self-seeded foxgloves I dug out the other day - 3 in the front border & the rest dotted around at the back of our old pear tree. Did more weeding & cutting back and finished with half an hour with the hoe. It's been quite blowy today so I thought it'd be a good time to uproot lots of annoying little weeds while they are small. They will wilt now & I can just nip round with the grabber next time to round them up. Oh & I also made a start on dividing up my Mum's pink primroses as I have way too many (again!). Gifted a dozen to my neighbour, shall need to do some more divisions & will use to replant a narrow border which always looks a bit weary compared to the rest of the garden. They do look very pretty with mini-daffodils, iris reticulata & grape hyacinths, etc, so I am happy to have plenty of them. Maybe my sister will want some more, though I doubt I'll see her until May. Didn't get round to investigating freebies in the cold frame. Shall have to do that either tomorrow or at the weekend.
*Did a couple of surveys - not a lot today, but I have mostly opted to do offline tasks, so could have missed some good ones, idk.
*Been discussing a low-spend little trip out at the weekend - decided to go to a local-ish (as in just over border into neighbouring county) gorge, treat ourselves to breakfast in their cafe (from Personal Spends so budget-neutral) then stay home the other day for some gardening. Mr F very keen to start emptying & dismantling the large rotten raised bed ready for constructing new one  - in general, a bit of a veggie plot refurb. I shall need the new planting space ready for end of May & I think it helps to have a deadline.
Right, nothing of much interest today - when is there? Time to round up potions & unguents for bath time. I had my ample backside in the air way too long trying to sort out those irises so I'm thinking that hot water will also help with stiff muscles.
Cheers, m'dears,
F x

Twolabsandacat

Love hearing about soot and ash's antics.  The whole point system for weight is a new one on me.  I shall see what our young boy is, next time i take him! 

PennysIntoPounds

Aw so glad Ash and Soot are in general good nick. What a mare with the roadworks though, and what is it with drivers of clearly-larger-than-will-fit vehicles thinking the laws of physics or indeed basic sense and decency don't apply to them 🙄
In full agreement that 'was doing something else, cba' is a valid way to go about one's day.
Pfft to nothing much of interest, you x

foxgloves

@Twolabsandacat - Yes, it was new to us too. A new vet whom we hadn't seen before. He said there's been a fair bit of research going on re domestic cats, so maybe it has been part of that, idk. The descriptions I found of the 9-point system online are based on the look & feel of the cat, which seems more realistic than a blanket target cat weight as they do vary (like us) in terms of frame size. Nevertheless, we aim to get Soot down a bit by next year's check-up. He is outdoors more in the summer which will help.
F

foxgloves

@PennysIntoPounds - Yes, he can't have been a local lorry driver. The teeny-tiny bridge, which is pretty much one car at a time, is on a very rural road (& by 'road' I mean about 4 miles of potholes joined together with a few just about discernible fragments of actual tarmac) & requires a sharp right-angled turn to access. Mr Artic the Lorry had thus got himself in a pickle with his cab on the bridge & the rest of him barely able to move more than a mm at a time. Mr F said irate drivers were shaking their fists & other assorted hand gestures. It's a real downside of sat-navs. 
F