Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

themadvix

Belated happy birthday Foxgloves! Hope you had a lovely day!

Moorviews

Belated Happy Birthday wishes! I hope you had a wonderful day 🎂🥳🥂

maggiem

Belated happy birthday. Hope you had the same lovely weather we had yesterday too. 

Suffolk_lass

Belated HB from me too! 🎂🥳🥂

foxgloves

Morning Frugal Friends,
Thanks so much for all the lovely birthday wishes - how nice it was to sign in & read all of those! Yes thanks, I have had a very nice birthday & weekend  - have been busy but also plenty of time for relaxing. Just been tidying up the post-birthday budgets this morning. I haven't been posting much, have I, but will to try to post a catch-up at some point, as the current kitchen garden refurb is now cracking on at pace for anyone who is following that, plus I though I might do a little write-up of how the food growing is looking atm. As usual at this time of year & in our inconsistent climate, some things are doing better than others, but progress has been made & it's a great feeling that we have just resumed picking stuff from the garden to eat.
Anyway, will save all that until I have time for a proper catch up.
Take care, all. 
F x

Suffolk_lass

I am beyond excited that three of my Guatemalan blue squash seeds have got second leaves! They survived Mr SL killing a third (maybe more) of my squash seeds by omitting to de-cloche or open the door of the greenhouse until they had got REALLY hot and had condensation on the leaves. Then he removed everything and they got really cold (sigh). He only had that responsibility when I was out on Thursday. All the leaves have withered and gone brown and transparent. Including four out of five of the mini crisp cucumbers we were trying for the first time (the other one is touch and go), and all of the mini munch seedlings. The Echium blue bedder seedlings are in a cold frame and escaped his "care and attention" (phew)

foxgloves

@Suffolk_lass - I love seeing seeds popping up. Shame about your plant losses. Have also had some here. Am intending to do a veggie/garden catch-up post soon - sort of a snapshot of how everything's doing, what's gone well, what's been struggling/failed. I have quite a lot to do in the greenhouse today so shall get all those tasks done first, then it will be an up-to-date catch-up.
F

foxgloves

Morning Campers! Lovely weather, wish I WAS camping!
Well,having been pretty much AWOL from here over my birthday weekend, I thought I'd do a round-up of relevant activity. Thanks for all your good wishes. I had a really enjoyable relaxing time.
FRIDAY: Big Budget Day. Reconciled April's budget & set May's. Pay-day was early due to BH so had to make sure all transactions over the 'twilight zone' were properly included. Popped into town to pay ISA allocation of inheritance money in at building society. Packed Easter decorations away. Made a note in my diary to remind me to start knitting some Easter bunting for front window in January. Left it too late again this year.
SATURDAY: Chosen birthday weekend outing to Garden Show (on local county showground). Dog Show always runs at same time so many more dogs around than I'm comfortable with but all very well behaved & on leads. Bought the plants I was looking for plus a new heucherella for my collection, some bargainaceous jute string & a bottle of ginger/turmeric shots to try from the food hall. Bday weekend curry night from our fab local Indian restaurant. Despite not over-ordering, there was enough left to make up 2 good-sized freezer meals for Mr F to take on his occasional extra-late shifts. Take-ways are SO much more enjoyable when they are a rare treat, rather than a standard weekly go-to for the usual range of lame money-wasting reasons from the old Spendy Years.
SUNDAY: Gardening Day. I got a good bending & stretching session removing more hawkweed, planted out the new plants, cleared & dug over a veg bed & planted out the lettuces. Also sowed french beans. Mr F constructed the 3 new raised beds & we sorted out exactly where we want them so as to enable weeding & walking round all sides. 
MONDAY: Leisurely late birthday breakfast at our favourite garden centre, followed by choosing 5 big pots for birthday dahlias & one for a Winter planting I want to do this year. The IT system had crashed by the time we got to the check-outs & the queues were unbelievable as the poor staff were having to check prices on phones, write down every sale manually, then write down customers' names, purchases, bank card details etc. I have never spent so much of my birthday standing in a queue, that's for sure! Later, having seen the news stories about power black-outs in Spain & Portugal, I thought I'd had it easy! Called in at village farm shop on way home to buy the garden bench we had chosen for our veggie garden refurb project. We now only require gravel & some extra compost which means there will be money left from the amount I ring-fenced for this work. Rest of day spent relaxing & looking at my presents & cards.
TUESDAY: Did budget updates, baked bread, did 2 big loads of laundry (all pegged out & dried very quickly), watered plant babies, picked lettuce & rocket for a side salad & wrote next week's meal plans.
TODAY: So far, I've sorted clean laundry & ironed the small number of garments which required it, added a final item to my winter clothes storage bag & put it away, zizzed up a stale heel of loaf for freezer breadcrumbs, checked on seed progress - 2 Guatemalan squash & 2 tromboncino have popped up overnight . Also checked my toiletries stash while I was putting away the lovely products I received for my birthday & started a list for planned city centre trip on Saturday.
Still to do: Write grocery shopping list, water plant babies, lots of potting on - too hot in the greenhouse so will set up a little workstation in the shade. Very low effort meal tonight as intend to make tuna, pepper & peanut rice. 
For those of you who like to follow food-growing progress, I will aim to do a post on where we are with that at Foxgloves Manor very soon.
Right, off to the shed to get all the potting-on bits & bobs together. Wishing everyone a nicely productive day,
F x

Makingabobor2

Sounds like a busy but productive weekend. Not sure if I would have had the patience to stand in that queue

foxgloves

@Makingabobor2 - I was very patient but moaned a lot, much I think to Mr F's embarrassment. Unfortunately, customers weren't properly informed - the staff were very good (& understandably stressed & fed-up) when we got to the tills, but what the situation needed was for a manager to come & explain the cause of the delay to the enormous queue. Someone did come & tell the last 3 or 4 folk in the queue but it was so long, nobody else could hear & when they did a tannoy announcement it sounded like "Good morning, mmmmmwmmmfmmmbbbbwmmmfblahblahmmmmmf, mssssssmmmwmmph, thank-you for your patience". Some people gave up & went home, others got as far as the till then left their trolleys because they didn't like the idea of having their card details & phone numbers written down. The queuing system there involves coralling customers in a very narrow snakey space which I found quite claustrophobic as it's hard to leave unless you are at either end & you couldn't turn a trolley round. I have a sore throat starting today so am wondering if some herbert huffed germs over me while we were so closely confined. 
I did buy some nice pots though, & we had a lovely birthday breakfast.
F x