Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

Afternoon Diary Readers,
Many thanks for your comments & contributions, which I have enjoyed reading as usual.
Staying on top of the veggie harvest season continues. Productive day, with tomorrow's tasks already planned.
*Today's garden pickings: Rest of the tomatoes. Sorted into ripe ones & those destined for the sunny ripening tray & basket. Also 2 tromboncinos (squash sized), courgettes, a pepper, chillies & carrots. Chillies frozen ready for using later this month.
*Took down all the outside tomato plants & packed away their bottomless pots, canes & toppers for next year. Used the spent compost to add a bit of fibre to the salad bed.
*Sorted greenhouse pepper & chilli plants into better positions for both ripening & staying moist.
*Potted up a dozen pansies grown from free seed.
*Sowed some lettuce seed into a spent grow bag. This will provide some cut & come again winter salad leaves. While I was busy with this, Mr F tested out the new electric shears on the hedge & then mowed the lawn.
*Still very much on use-it-up here where food is concerned. Poached salmon fillets tonight with roast veg couscous & french beans.
*Still using up a big stash of strong bin bags we found while clearing Mum & Dad's house so was able to pack my charity shop declutterings in a nice strong sack ready for dropping off on Wednesday.
*Did Monday morning budget check-ins.....or rather, I looked at our accounts & discovered I am up to date with everything atm.
*Sorted large jars & lids from my stash ready for more tomato bottling tomorrow. 
*Did a survey.
*Entered a competition.
And that, m'dears will be it for today, as I am going to do some reading & watch TV later. I need the next few days to be productive so am dividing up tasks between them in my diary so I don't forget anything. 
Love F x

foxgloves

Hello Diary Lovelies,
Hope everyone's managed at least a reasonably decent day. No excitement here (a good thing). Budget-friendly efforts as follows:
*Treated ourselves to breakfast at the farm shop cafe in our village. Paid from our Personal Spends so budget-neutral. Managed to ignore the lovely things on sale in the homeware shop.
*Put a colour on my yukky roots so as not to spoil forthcoming holiday photos looking like demented pebble-hunting badger.
*Took advantage of good free drying weather to wash a load of towels & some 
trousers I thought Mr F had put in the bin (never mind, as they will soon walk there on their own!)
*Bottled another 5kg of tomatoes. Despite having 14 plants this year instead of last year's 19, & a slow start, we've had a good crop. 
*Using up current food stores continues - pesto pasta tonight from the 1st of the big picks of basil & yes, it will include a couple of courgettes, of course it will. And I think I've eaten 2 pears a day for about the last month!
*Entered a competition.
Apparently it's not my cooking night, so I've taken myself off to the reading bench with my book & the last bits of the weekend papers. A nicer end to the day than the beginning, anyway, which involved interring one of Soot's rodents.
F x 

Sun_Addict

Thanks for mentioning the salad leaves as it reminded me I’ve got some all year round seeds and it prompted me to sow them. I only grew 4 tomato plants but they gave a decent yield. 

Suffolk_lass

Ooh yes, and pansies. I have two small troughs that need planting up with mine before we do away tomorrow (only 3 nights, in a field in our camper! Not sure what to do with my tomatoes. I might pick them all next Monday, before we go away until the end of the month. I can close up the greenhouse and leave them on the counter while we are away, to ripen... maybe...

foxgloves

That's what I've done with mine, @Suffolk_lass. All the ripe ones bottled yesterday. All the others left to ripen while we are away ready for chutney, soup & gigantes plakis making when we return. Just labelled & stashed another 8 jars of tomatoes in the pantry. 
F

foxgloves

Hello Money Savers,
I seem to have been on the go since I got up, but have almost finished everything on my pre-holiday task lists. Wasn't sure if I'd get a post on or not today, but as our online banking seems to be down atm, I am unable to get a couple of planned little jobs done so am chatting to you instead. Budget-helping stuff as follows:
*Decided on 4 main meals to eat while we are away (self-catering) so as to take the ingredients with us. We will probably have fish & chips on one of the other nights plus go out for a meal on the other so some meals cooked with our own stuff will defo be a money saver.
*Baked a crusty loaf, a tin of not-too-unhealthy biscuits & a modest sized cake to take with us too, as we find we save a lot when we are on holiday by being back at the cottage for afternoon tea rather than heading for a cafe. Will also make a picnic lunch & flask for the long drive for a further saving.
*Made use of the Cephalopods' free electricity hour today by stripping the bed & washing bed linen - whether I can hang it out at all is another matter as we are having some really brisk thundery showers today. I think I will put it on the airer & switch it on tomorrow morning just to finish it off.
*Received 2 nice mags from my sis in the post so have added those to 3 gardening ones I saved for holiday reading  - definitely DON'T need to be tempted by further mags as I shall have my book too.
*Entered a competition.
*Water greenhouse (peppers & chillies).
*Moved latest batch of red tomatoes from the ripening basket to the fridge. 
*Once this latest shower stops, I need to pop out to do a veg picking round-up. It's likely to be a pepper, courgettes & french beans, possibly blackberries too.
Mr F has a cold. He hardly ever gets colds but it's the 2nd one this year & he's also had covid. He's very diligent over hand hygiene, but he works in a frontline role in the public sector, so he can't really avoid being huffed on by random germy herberts. He did a covid test just to be on the safe side, as we'd both read that this latest variant is very much doing the rounds, but he was pleased to see it was negative. Well, I think I will have another attempt at logging into online banking, then get the laundry hung up & veg picked. Then I shall be ready for some bum on sofa time with a few chapters of my library book - the latest novel in the Washington Poe crime series. @ziggy2407, if you are reading, have you had this one yet? I know you like the author. I'm enjoying it & found the bit where they go to the role-playing games convention very funny.
Anyway, enough yakk from me, must crack on,
F xx

PennysIntoPounds

Hope Mr F shifts that cold swiftly.
Marvellous work on the holiday prep and especially baking to take away with you!

Debsnewbudget

I loved the latest Washington Poe book.  

Mike Craven is a brilliant author 

Makingabobor2

Oh, poor Mr FG, hope the cold doesn't come to much and he feels ok in a day or 2. Seems to be a lot going round all of a sudden, and like you say, a lot of covid as well. 

Sun_Addict

Hope Mr F feels better by the time you set off on your travels 🤞 The break will do him a world of good if not.