Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

EssexHebridean

Suffolk_lass said:

ladyholly said:

slm6002 said:

Mum always said '2 shakes of a lambs tail'

And mine.

...and mine. My Dad however, used to wind down his car window and shout "mint sauce" to the amusement of his children, every Spring, as we drove past the newborn lambs. The first one local to us was born on Saturday

This has been a staple joke in our household for years! 

I'm keen to eat seasonally as much as possible. We only buy British Strawberries in season, ditto raspberries unless I occasionally get frozen ones when quite frankly they could come from anywhere, I've not checked! As for Hot Cross buns, those are generally speaking a seasonal treat, and I confess I do thoroughly enjoy some of the more random flavours - Al's Salted Caramel are lush!  We've really enjoyed having the veg box for more of a focus on what is seasonal. 

foxgloves

@EssexHebridean - We've never had seasonal veg boxes, but I think both they & home grown fruit & veg really emphasise seasonality. There's a time for everything in nature, & I like that.
F

joedenise

I don't have veg boxes but do like to check what's in them online to help decide what veg to buy!  I think the boxes tend to be quite expensive.  They also don't deliver on the day I would like!

foxgloves

Greetings from the chilly Midlands, currently Drizzle-Central,
I've been quite busy with financials the last couple of days & am feeling pretty much back in control. Yesterday was my Big Budget Day, which began with reconciling February's outgoings & assessing the general state of things, before setting March's budget. It took me much longer than usual, & for a good reason, because Mr F had a decent wodge of long-awaited backpay & I wanted to ensure that it was allocated sensibly so as to make best use of it. Our key financial objective this year is to re-build our Savings Pots. We see these as very much our 'first line of defence' in remaining solvent & in more recent years, being able to start building some general savings, which was a new concept for both of us. After I'd done the basics of March's budget, I worked through various Savings Pots options on paper & was able to divide a worthwhile sum of money between 9 out of 10 of them. This included topping up 2 of them (Appliance Replacement Pot & Tech Replacement Pot) to our agreed maximum amount for this year, as well as making payments to others which put the Savings Pots generally in a better position. I also allowed extra in the grocery budget to cover our planned pantry re-stock of core basics at A*di later this week (roughly a quarterly event for us or slightly less) & decided to budget our compost/grow-bag requirements for a whole year (can get it delivered from village garden centre), rather than keep popping back to buy them in 2s & 3s. Like everything, it's risen in price & think I will use it much more mindfully if I'm looking at a stash of sacks & thinking it's got to last me all year. I checked a few other places, but the village prices are competitive so we'd rather support a local business.
Finally, I left extra money in our buffer zone. This was done for psychological reasons, really, because if I can use that for any little odds & sods we end up needing to buy, then it will help the Savings Pots to build.  So that was yesterday's Budget Day.

Today has been a bit of a weird one. I had a single job planned.....to get through to the helpline to ascertain why I have for over a week been completely unable to register for the Gov.UK website. All my attempts were halted at exactly the same point, with all efforts to try & solve the mystery sending me into a doom-loop back to the same problem. The official line seemed to be that if people were having trouble with the online system, they should keep trying & WOULD succeed. This obviously implied that the issue was system-related so I persevered, but there comes a time when you just think "**** this for a game of darts!" & thus 8.00am this morning found me phoning the helpline to enquire why my name, d.o.b & NI number were not recognised by their system. Got through after about 15 mins & advisor said I should go back onto the site, get to the problem page then report it to the tech team. As I had recently received a letter from the tax office with correct name, she reckoned they had an incorrect d.o.b for me. She also gave me a phone no for the Future Pensions team so I could talk to somebody in person. 7 phone calls later (queues so long I couldn't even get in a queue at first!) I finally had a ringtone, followed by 20 mins of an earworm I won't dignify with the term 'music'. The advisor was very good & I felt I'd made progress. He checked their records & my d.o.b was correct. He said that this problem with people's details being refuted, thus halting the registration process is quite a regular occurrence. Well, it's bloody frustrating & it wants fixing. I often think of all the people out there who are not very IT-literate....or even literate.....trying to navigate their way through these processes. The information-poor are more likely to be one a low-income, so it's an downward spiral of frustration & poor access. Access isn't only about ramps, etc, there are barriers to the digital world too for a lot of people.
The thing which really annoyed me was that each time I listened to the pre-recorded blurb, I was told that it would be quicker for me to register online & use their digital services. I would much have preferred this than phoning repeatedly & waiting while, incidentally, Ash decided to have a kind of crazy Spring Cat meltdown under the bed savaging whatever he could find before lying on his back & pulling himself along at top speed with his claws in the mattress!!!  (I was upstairs as that's where the best phone signal is atm). But having said all that, I still didn't take nearly as long getting through as I though I would, so was able to do some other bits & pieces too. I've baked a nice crusty little sourdough loaf, mixed up the ingredients for sweet & sour sauce tonight as well as prepping all the veg & remembering to defrost the prawns. Have cashed out my Feb PA earnings (promised to the Savings Pots this month) at £42-27 & done over £4's worth of surveys since then to start March's earnings off. I've also done price comparisons on a notional 'basket' of core grocery basics between A*di & WaitBloom 'Essentials' range, which we really like. I'd been meaning to do this for a while & the findings certainly validates our method of doing a big stock-up of A*di store cupboard ingredients 3 or 4 times a year. Of course, with the other shop, there is also free coffee for shoppers to factor in, which is, of course, a saving if we were planning to visit a coffee shop, plus the building of loyalty points for vouchers, & it being a useful place to go for small nice presents, so while it's not quite like-for-like, I would still rather make the saving on those tinned goods & a few other things we use regularly, as those 11p difference on tins do add up when bought in multiples. I wouldn't be so bothered if I was just buying one. Of course some items it's a much bigger difference - i.e reduced fat coconut milk, which I like to have in for curries....79p versus £1.10. In fact, I must check I've included that on our stock-up list......
Well, that is quite enough from me. I can hear cat activity again (they are right little monkeys at the moment) so will sign out & go & see what is going on. 
Keep it in your purses, m'dears!
F x

Makingabobor2

I really like the idea of having appliance & tech replacement pots.. As opposed to just an emergency fund. That's something I might look into.  You are always full of good ideas. 

I know what you mean about the Gov.UK. When my MIL came to claim her pension, she had a right faff as they told her someone with the same NI number was already claiming it.....I mean how is that possible.??  Hope you managed to sort it all in the end. 

foxgloves

@Makingabobor2 - Our 10 savings pots are for foreseeable expenses, so they protect our emergency fund for true emergencies....as long as the system's working & they have money in them!
F x

lucielle

What does TRE stand for?  L

joedenise

@foxgloves - I like to use the light coconut milk too but have found that if you mix a can of full fat coconut milk with a can of water it is exactly the same as the light coconut milk.  I only use 100ml per curry usually and the rest I freeze in a silicon muffin tray and once frozen tip into a freezer bag.  Certainly saves some money.

Makingabobor2

foxgloves said:

@Makingabobor2 - Our 10 savings pots are for foreseeable expenses, so they protect our emergency fund for true emergencies....as long as the system's working & they have money in them!
F x

We have pots for a few things but never actually thought about separate ones for those 2 things. 

WinterWarrior

I struggle with the more random of my pots as I’ll raid them just to make sure my big savings don’t go down. This is a failing of mine as I cut the budget very tight so I can fill up pots and add savings, then I need a bit extra and I don’t want my savings to go down. I try not to stress about it though as long as overall I increase month on month (my savings not my waistline 😬). Going back to hot cross buns, I used to love the cherry one m&s used to do 😋 I wonder if they still have them? I miss access to the food hall, sigh.