Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

Cheery_Daff

We used to get a lot of calls at our old house as Mr C had previously had a business listed in the yellow pages, operating from home. I accidentally discovered the 'are you the homeowner?' people could be very easily fobbed off by saying 'no, I rent a room' and said that to everyone after that 😂 

Don't even have the phone plugged in at the new house. The only reason we had a landlines at all was to still have a phone if there's a power cut (came in VERY handy a few years ago in a 4 day power cut (so no phone charging) AND the mobile mast went down 😬

Sadly we've been switched over to the new system, with the landlines needing to be plugged into the modem, meaning it doesn't work during a power cut, rendering it entirely useless. So we do own one, but it's not plugged in. On the plus side, very few scam calls! 😂

foxgloves

Hello Readers,
Such a busy day....I got my daily minimum steps without needing to do any marching up the garden or additional activity. In fact, if I had, had time to go out for a walk, I'd have done around 10k. So, what has been achieved on the budget-friendly front?
*Not a no-spend day as I did need to order some deodorant refills, but this is not a very regular purchase as I find they last a fair while & I do like being able to compost the cardboard.
*Garden pickings: Pear, grapes, courgettes. french beans, 1.5 kg tomatoes, carrots, blackberries.
*Made a veg crumble for tonight's meal, which took care of various veg. Shall serve it with courgettes stir-fried with garlic.
*Did a thorough triage of the courgettes in our veg basket & turned 1kg of them into courgette, potato & cheddar soup - a recipe I found online a couple of years ago - BBC Good Food, I think. It made 5 portions, one of which I ate for my lunch & the other 4 are in the freezer.
*Used the tomatoes I picked today to make pasta sauce - Carluccio's recipe - a basic one which can be used in its own right or as a base for other dishes such as lasagne, etc. Just cooling ready to freeze.
*Made tomorrow's packed lunch & breakfast.
*Did my usual Monday morning budget updates. Moved a few bits & bobs of money around & generally got things straight for tomorrow's belated Mid-Month Budget Check-In.
*Checked my credit card account just to make sure that the crim who phoned me hadn't managed to do anything in the last couple of days.....though the card for which he has details is now blocked.
*Changed bed linen & added it to the Monday laundry pile - 3 loads done, all pegged out for free drying, which was fine, despite 2 or 3 spells of silly drizzle.
*Did a couple of surveys. My earnings this month will be truly pitiful if I don't get back to tackling surveys on a consistent basis. 
*Tweaked this week's meal plans to make better use of our fresh produce. 
TV quiz night tonight so we will be competing against each other on those. I don't intend to do any more jobs today, that's for sure, but I do have more kitchen witchery lined up for tomorrow.
Oh, & I would dearly like to begin tomorrow morning without a half a rodent to deal with! I strongly suspect that Soot took it down then left it to be eaten by a magpie as after I'd moved the sorry remains off the lawn, I noticed that a magpie flew down & seemed to be searching the area where it had been. Soot also caught a red admiral this afternoon. Thankfully I saw him do it & managed to rescue it & it flew off without any damage. For an 11-year old cat who had never even been outside until he came to live with us, he can certainly hunt. While I am happy for him to control rodent numbers, as we have had annual mouse problems here over several years, I do keep an eye on what he's getting up to so that any other creatures can be saved. He doesn't seem too bothered about going out at night, which is a help.
Right, I shall say goodbye for now & wish you all a pleasant evening.
F x

Sun_Addict

Thank goodness you were able to spot the scammer. It’s scary how these crooks can get hold of sufficient information to sound almost plausible. 

Fingers crossed no part rodents to deal with tomorrow. 

foxgloves

Yes, it is scary, @Sun_Addict because I went through all the ways (that are known to me, anyway) that my credit card details could have been compromised & I didn't come up with an answer. That means it wasn't any of the obvoious ways or lack of security on my part, which really only leaves a data breach from someone hacking a company I use, card skimming or some other form of card crime. Of course lists of such info is bound to be available for sale on the dark web. As I said, this crim knew my phone number, name (though a muddled version), card provider, last 4 digits of my card number & last 2 of the 3-digit security code. I never withdraw cash on a credit card so that rules out a skimming device on a cashpoint, so I can only think there's been a security breach from somewhere I've used my card over the last couple of years. Coincidentally, I had to get this card when a couple of pending transactions appeared on my credit card statement which hadn't been made by me. I contacted the fraud dept & he said they were both to an online payment platform.....well, I recall I hadn't even had my laptop out on that day. They were blocked & I was sent a new card. It does show though, that more of our personal details are 'out there' than we like to think.
Query everything. As @badmemory said, better to ring the bank yourself & feel like a slight numpty than to lose your money. This was a very smooth talking, articulate man who used the well-publicised recent M&S hack to boost the credibility of what he was telling me. He didn't get my money, but I wonder how many people he DID manage to scam that day. A fair few, I'm thinking.
F

Cheery_Daff

It's frightening, isn't it? My bank picked up a fraud last year - because my card was used to pay for a taxi abroad (Finland, I think!) And a posh hotel in London - very out of character for me 😂 They cancelled the card and investigated - and eventually it turned out that the scammer had created a replica card. They'd had to send the hotel a photograph of themselves holding it- which the bank sent to me, along with the address of the person who'd used it! Which felt like a data breach itself! 😂 albeit of the scammer's data 😂 Fortunately I wasn't inclined to vigilante action 😬 although I now wish I'd sent something horrid-smelling in the post 😂

foxgloves

@Cheery_Daff - Oh how tempting, once you knew the scammer's address! A bagful of ripe litter tray at the very least, I think!
F

rtandon27

@foxgloves - we really have gathered round your virtual kitchen table to have a natter on all things crim b'nk'ng related!

One of my c/c's call centres in India once blocked my MrS card when I dared to say I could not understand their questions because the accent was not one my ear could pick up.  The best bit is that I was calling to ask why the Bigriver company transaction had not gone through as I order from them multiple times a month!  I asked to speak to someone with either UK accent or across the pond accent instead of them!  The numpty said it was fraud and I had to wait 2 weeks to get my card reinstated through the good old RM postal system, which in my town is a complete farce - we get proper deliveries of 1st class post once a week on a Saturday if we are lucky! 

RM aside, I put in a huge complaint with the bank which did end up in the UK and the person who called me provided a method to contact the customer complaint centre directly!  Luckily, I have two other c/c's that could be used in the meantime or we would have not had groceries delivered for 1/2 a month!  It's no wonder said 'bank' has been taken over & I"m looking forward to dealing with a 'real' bank going forward!

The best thing is that my very English OH reminded me that my preferred version of English is the Beeb LDN and I struggle with anything north of Oxford and south of Scotland!  So he suggested next time I more specifically ask to speak to someone with a plum in their mouth or someone who interjects 'eh' & 'sorry' in every sentence so my head has time to translate English to English! 🤣🤣🤣

foxgloves

Morning Diary Friends,
Was surprised to see the rain this morning.....or rather feel it on the fur of weather forecasting cats first thing. Soot came in damp, followed by Ash looking like a saturated spiky hedgehog, It's drying up now but I think the garden will have been grateful.
Right, I'm about half-way through what I hope to achieve today, the budget-friendly bits of which are as follows:
*Made dough for a batch of bread rolls.
*Did my Mid-Month Budget Check-In. No nasty surprises. I was only 11p out on my original one & that was in our favour. I shall have to be careful how I spend that whole 11p & mustn't go mad! My Nana would have said, "That's over 2 shillings!" so I shall channel the spirit of Nana & be grateful it was an error which gave instead of taking away.
*Did some admin tasks - I think keeping on top of admin tasks can be classed as generally money saving - for instance, I set some future holiday dates for the milkman & noted in my diary that I have done this. No point paying for sour milk on our return because such a simple task got forgotten. Also booked our annual gas servicing for next month as I think it's worth getting it looked at before the colder months kick in. Nice to know an engineer has switched it on & checked everything, isn't it? Of course, keeping important things serviced regularly also has positive financial implications as small problems are found before they become big heating failure ones.
*Dry laundry needs sorting & there'll be a small amount of ironing from that.
*Garden pickings will be blackberries & pears.......
*.....some of which I will cook into a compote & bottle for the pantry. I tried bottling a few jars of this last year & we both enjoyed them in the colder months - nice on porridge, rice pudding or just on its own.
*Need to get the slow cooker on mid-pm  - sausage hot-pot from the "I heart my slow cooker" book. There'll be enough to feed us on Thursday night too. Love using 450g of our fresh tomatoes, skinned & chopped instead of a tin, as the flavour always seems more mellow & without the metallic tang.
*Will also make a good start on Aug Week 4's grocery shopping list - meals are all planned for next week, just need to think about what we need for the weekend when we have friends coming over for a BBQ.
Right, that is going to be quite enough jobs for today, unless I suddenly have an extra burst of energy.
Wishing everyone a peaceful, pleasant day.
F x

badmemory

I don't think it is the accents so much that are the problem but they gabble at you.  So instead of words it is just like a wall of meaningless noise.

foxgloves

@badmemory - Yes, my previous experience of scammy phone calls has been that the person really gabbled & had very strongly accented English, but this chap spoke perfect English - very smooth, RP, sounded educated & refined. He also spoke very steadily, repeating the bits of his spiel which were designed to reassure me that he was definitely from my credit card provider & not a scammer. One of the things which actually made me most suspicious was that he was trying to be too helpful, offering to implement various things to make my card more secure in future. These suggestions were OTT, as was his repeated line of questioning as to my recent possible use of the card at M&S, implying it had probably been compromised during their hacking fiasco. Along with a few other things, it all just sounded too much. And it was, as my call to the bank proved that he was indeed as dodgy as ****!
F