Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

And now for a very mundane post, but I do think regular posting on my diary helps to keep me motivated with all things financial (especially not being wasteful)
First day of Mr F's leave & wouldn't you know he had to wfh this morning?! Never mind, too cold & wet to fancy going out anywhere & we've had a useful afternoon chatting about various plans. Anyway, money saving bits & bobs:
*Did meal plans for next week. Roast chicken planned for Sunday, then 3 days of knock-on meals from the leftover meat. All the other meals except Saturday's involve stuff from the freezer, so........
*.......wrote a pretty short grocery list & also added a few more core store cupboard staples to the A*di pantry stock-up list.
*Drew down 2 months of PA survey earnings from Paypal & have transferred January's to my Personal Spends (£26) & February's (£42) to the Presents Pot.
*Did 3 surveys this afternoon. Am up to over £4 already on my March earnings.
*Very cheap easy meal tonight - pesto pasta using the last of the big batch I made with last summer's home grown basil crop. Even better, Mr F says he's cooking it, so I will be able to make a start on reading the next book from my charity bookshop pile of finds.
*Wrote all March's birthday cards - stamps leftover from Christmas.
*Made a rough plan with Mr F of things we'd like to do while he's off. Some of them we have no choice about, such as my city centre visit for a conebeam scan (Dentist Pot at the ready........again!) but we'd like to fit in walks & fresh air at 3 local-ish places if possible. This will depend on the weather. It's already clear from all the sleet in next week's forecast that we're not going to get many of our hoped-for gardening jobs done. We have some useful wet weather options though, so hopefully we will be able to get at least some stuff done & he'll have enjoyed his break from work.
Think that's everything. Oh, no actually, it isn't. Guess what arrived n the post this morning? That tax refund cheque I received the unexpected letter about last week!! As I mentioned before, the letter said that this is to do with interest on a savings account. While we have 2 savings accounts in my name, I can't see any reason for this refund to have transpired. It's only a very small sum - under £40, so I will bank it. I was convinced that I would receive a follow-up letter informing me it had been an error. So in the spirit of 2023's goal to build up our savings pots, that is where it will be headed.
Right m'dears, I'm off to put another layer on, choose a book, make a hot water bottle & see which cat I have to fight to get a fair share of Mum's crochet blanket. I do like Autumn & Winter - there's something of beauty & fascination in every season - but I can't deny I'll be glad to see the weather warm up.
F x

walkers60

Thank you so much for your detailed reply.  I will try to sort out something similar.  It makes sense the way you have explained it.  I did wonder whether the bank would question it if I opened a lot of savings a/c for each area!  Something for me to work on.  
Walkers

Suffolk_lass

Ooh, I remember - you said yesterday (or the day before) that you made a call from upstairs because of poor reception. We have that. DH found that we can connect our mobile phones to call using Wifi where we are connected to it, so poor network signal is no longer an issue, especially at home. I remember you don't use a landline but I can't remember what type of phone you have. Ours are Samsung androids - you open the phone app, go to settings and toggle to WiFi calling preferred - it will revert to cellphone network when no WiFi is available. It means we use the house WiFi and the signal is great. I know most iPhones can too. Just thought it might help

Makingabobor2

I never find your posts mundane. I find them always very inspiring and very often find myself thinking...."ooh, that's a good idea", or "ooh, I could do that". Keep posting, 'cause we're all reading. 

Glad you got the refund cheque. Doesn't matter that its only a small amount, as Mr T says....every little helps. 

themadvix

Makingabobor2 said:

I never find your posts mundane. I find them always very inspiring and very often find myself thinking...."ooh, that's a good idea", or "ooh, I could do that". Keep posting, 'cause we're all reading. 

Seconded! The number of times I read diaries that detail the little things, including yours, and it sends me off to do something, reminds me to check something or inspires me to do something new is enormous! Is where the truest value of this forum and indeed the website is as far as I’m concerned. And repeating things helps them really get into people’s heads (I’m thinking of ‘shopping from home’ among others - if you’d said it once, we might not have noticed, but it’s a Foxgloves catchphrase and that reminds us to do it too!)

Humdinger1

Mundane!? Never @foxgloves!! Realistic and philosophical- a rare and beautiful combo - I'd agree.  Why couldn't you have been PM or health sec when covid broke out, that's what I want to know.  Onwards and upwards love Humdinger xx 

foxgloves

@walkers60 - You're welcome!
@Suffolk_lass - Thanks, yes, I can do that. I'm actually testing phone signal situation here atm. We are with the "Sean Bean voiced-over network" & it used to be a really good signal from everywhere in our house & garden except for the conservatory, which was understandable as next door's big extension blocks it at least some of the time. So I was perfectly happy with the situation until shortly before Christmas when calls to my phone started dropping out after just a few seconds, a minute at the most. About 3 weeks ago, I noticed that I couldn't get a strong enough signal to make a call unless I stood by the window in one of two upstairs rooms. Ridiculous! Even there, the signal is never more than 2 bars, usually just 1. Not being the shrinking violet type, I called into the local branch of the network's shop & complained. I said that there wasn't a lot of point me paying for their services every month if my only reliable way of making or receiving phone calls is going to be via WhatsApp. They said that my SIM was quite old & that most instances of this are solved by fitting a new SIM, so they did that for me (no charge) & told me to monitor call drop-outs/signal for a while. They said the next stage would be to look at my phone itself, & if that doesn't provide any answers, they move onto looking at network issues. I did manage to make 2 longish calls (when you factor in the queues & listening to the recorded messages 93 million times) to the tax people without any drop-outs, but I didn't risk trying to call from downstairs. I'm going to give it another week or two to get some more evidence, then I'm pretty sure I'll be re-visiting the shop......shame Sean Bean not there in person, but we all have our crosses to bear!
@Makingabobor2 - Thanks, kind of you to say so. Yes, I do agree that all those little amounts add up. Back when we were debt-busting (it's some years ago now), I remember that I'd pay in all sorts of oddments so as to be able to make an extra payment, especially to my evil flexi-loan (honestly that thing was the very devil).....I'd save £10 of 20p pieces in a long tube & pay those in, sell a couple of small bits on the Bay & add those, knit a pair of socks for someone & add my fee......I know some of these many payments were very small, but every time I got the debt below the next £10 felt like progress. I'm now doing it the other way round to re-build our savings pots.
F 

foxgloves

@themadvix & @Humdinger1 - You are too kind x

foxgloves

Greetings Thursday Pence-Wranglers,
Another day cloaked in dreariest grey. Grateful for the mini-daffodils which are popping their buds in our front courtyard beds. 
Another unexciting , though pleasant day, in which I have kept the money-saving faith & not been tempted off the path to re-building plumptious savings pots by a morning visit to my favourite garden centre. We did treat ourselves to a skinny cappuccino & cheese scone each for breakfast, but this was, as usual, from our Personal Spends, so budget-neutral. Normally, I might eat this AFTER an early breakfast, but not with TRE, as I'm not allowed anything until 10am. I've just had a simple 2-egg omelette & a ramekin of low-fat plain yoghurt with a chopped apple since then & that will last me until tonight when I am making hot veggie pizzas using home made garlic flatbreads as the base, which will reduce portion size quite effectively, which we will have with salad.
Primary reason for visiting garden centre was not filling my face with cheese scone, but buying the final 2 packets of veggie seed required for the growing season. Our little village garden centre had run out of climbing beans, so I needed those & I also decided to get some carrot seeds - the small round ones for growing in containers, which will be good additions to lunch boxes. Despite all the other lovely stuff on display - quite a few pretty Spring garments caught my eye, plus a lovely purse with owls on it & a whole array of gorgeous looking toiletries - I did just stick to my planned purchase of the veggie seeds. 
Not a lot of other stuff to report - I've done a couple of surveys, entered a competition & we've cleaned the house between us, using the usual minimum products. We also did the WaitBl00m portion of our weekly grocery shop, which came in at an acceptable £37, which means we still have sufficient for the rest of our list in town tomorrow, when we will need to visit the local market for fresh fruit & veg, the eco-refill shop & probably Wilk*'s for Persian Queen cat food. Ohhhhh, talking of cat food......the cheapest we can get a box of 40 pouches of aforementioned cat food locally is £16.50. This, as I think I said earlier is an increase of £1 on what we were paying at the same store 2 weeks ago. The garden centre we visited this morning is on a retail park in a not-far-away village & there is also a pet store - probably a chain, but not the big well known one. Mr F suggested we just pop in to see if they had a better price on Soot & Ash's brand of choice. Well, they certainly sell it, but it was priced at £20-99!! As you can imagine, we left it there & stomped off for our coffee! I expect I could shave a £ or so off were I to go online, but I would rather try & do my bit to keep actual shops going...............not that one, though. That's an outrageous price & I hope nobody is silly enough to pay it!
Right m'dears, that's me done. Shall enjoy a chapter or two of my book before deciding what I need to chop up to go on these pizzas!
Love to all,
F x

Makingabobor2

Love a browse round a garden centre. Talking of seeds...you may be the very lady to ask.....Last year was my first attempt at growing anything other than a tomato plant and I want to do even more this year. It all has to be in planters/troughs and big containers as we have not garden space for planting veg.   Anyway, I have bought some carrot seeds again, as they worked very well last year, and these say to sow outside from Feb - July.   Am I correct in thinking that as it has turned really cold at the  moment, I would be better off waiting until it warms up a bit?  I also got a few seed potatoes that say Feb - April?  Don't want to waste them by planting them and they don't grow. But I am so excited to get going again this year and hope to have even more stuff than last year.