Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

Hello Readers,
Another day of kitchen witchery to get on top of harvest time here at Foxgloves Manor. Amazing the amount of food one can produce from a relatively small kitchen garden area & greenhouse.
*Garden pickings: Last of the aubergines, basil.
*Aubergine plants chopped down & added to compost. We make good compost but despite 5 bins & the wormery, we never have enough of it.
*Made last pesto of the season. 7 pots frozen. Kitchen (& me!) de-greened. An easy but messy job.
*Made a batch of Cranks' tomato soup & froze.
*Am subbing in chopped french beans to tonight's kedgeree instead of frozen peas as have some which need using (the spirit of 'use-it-up' is strong here atm.
*Made a sourdough ready for baking tomorrow morning.
*Started grocery shopping list. It's taking a bit longer as I want to keep it below £54 to compensate for a larger spend last week which included both entertaining & stocking up on a few items. I'm checking everything thoroughly before writing it down as there have been a few items recently I've bought, then found an unopened one in a different area of the pantry. We have a tight meal plan in place so really shouldn't need to buy much. 
Looking forward to Sewing Bee later.
Take care m'dears,
F x

themadvix

Will be interesting to hear the responses (although I'm afraid I'll still be sceptical - they'll only be telling you what they've been told by the collecting company).

Sadly our Waitflower closed several years ago due to low footfall - although I'm quite surprised it had been there as long as it had (it's not that sort of town, generally speaking). We have two T's, two S's, an Al and a large A's 🙄. They are due to redevelop our local shops where we have a C00p and apparently people wanted a larger shop there - quite concerned that this a) won't be a C00p and b) will be large enough that it will have to follow Sunday trading laws (which I bet no one considered when saying they wanted something larger 🙄). I like a quiet Sunday, but being able to pop out early for milk if we've run out is useful. It'll be the petrol station instead (although also a C00p bizarrely).

badmemory

I admit I have not had pets for some years, but I would be worrying about exactly the same things I worry about when I buy us something packaged.  My ex already had a dog when we met but it was pretty obvious his mother didn't want him to leave (the dog that is).  He had always been fed on tinned food & now the vet said he needed to be fed on tripe due to the damage.  So when we got a dog we fed her straight away on the food the vet recommended which was shin beef & potatoes with the skins on.  She only had tinned once a week.  That dog used to eat better than us sometimes!

teapot2

Hi @Foxgloves I used Z00plus for my cat's renal diet food [which only came in pouches or dried] and found them very reliable and often surprisingly quick delivery.  His food was considerably more expensive to buy from the vet plus heavy for me to carry home so I felt this was the best option.  They have some options for saving via regular but flexible orders and also give points which you can save to use for treats or toys or to donate to animal charities.  They also give cashback on TeeCeeBee.