Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

@Humdinger1 - Yes, this particular one was certainly from that training manual! When the 1st attempt took us back to the beginning, we tried a tweak & exactly the same thing happened. There was only 1 other possible signed diversion left to us.....via Pontefract. Fortunately, we decided to park up at the Services & have think....where we met a chap who HAD tried the Pontefract diversion route, followed all the signs & yep, ended up back at the Services, in which I rather ascerbically said that Highways must have shares!
We both drive, can follow signs confidently....they just all brought us back to the closed A1. Total pants. Mr F said I was very good not to 'go off on one' as I do have a temper but thankfully I'd had a sarnie & some crisps & held it together!
F

Suffolk_lass

Ooh thanks for that insight @foxgloves! We are planning the A1 from Scotch corner then A14 to Suffolk but as we are going back to my Mum's for her 96th birthday (Monday) when we leave here tomorrow, we can't really travel at night so will be pottering on Tuesday. I allow a good 8 hours as we have to stop for dog widdling and sniffing, and husband stretching, more often than I would like. Glad I reread that as punctuation is everything IYSWIM!

foxgloves

@rtandon27 - Yes, frozen turkeys do take up the most enormous amount of freezer space, I agree, & they are a lumpy-plumpy shape (not meaning to body-shame any visiting poultry, of course). Mr F gets a bit of a bee in his bonnet about the Christmas turkey, which I must say amuses me as he was a vegetarian for years before he moved in with me......or rather, perhaps I should correct that to him getting a bee in his bonnet about the prospect of NOT getting one. This is why the subject has arisen 3 times this week, even earlier than last year. I love a Christmas turkey & all the yummy batch-cooks I get from it in the following days but I don't intend to be discussing it on a regular basis for the next 3 months. So last night, when the topic arose again, I surprised him by checking online to see if the festive food for Christmas Eve collection is available for order yet. It is, so I told him to go ahead & order a fresh free range one. He nearly fell off the sofa! Said it would be a lot more expensive, which it is, but while I have no qualms about eating meat - I understand the concept of a food chain - I really don't like the thought of those lovely turkeys not having been able to go outside & enjoy fresh air & pecky, foraging behaviour, so yep, I said, we've often bought fresh ones in the past, they are very nice, get one ordered! He didn't need telling twice. The additional benefit of course is that it has cut continued regular mentions of there being no room in the freezers for a frozen one off at the pass. Double result! And that, dear readers, is how we came to have a Christmas turkey on order before the end of September! Am wondering how long it'll be before he's working out how many sausage rolls I'll need to bake.......
F

foxgloves

And now for today's post......
*Big Budget Day, so the majority of today's money saving activity has been sorting that out - reconciling September's, then setting October's. It cost us just a £1-91 overspend on September's grocery budget to feed us for an additional week, which has meant we will just have 4 grocery shopping weeks in October instead of 5. That feels like a positive start to the new budget cycle. Another positive was that there's nothing outstanding on my CC to pay this month so I've logged the birthday present I've just bought to stash away for Mr F as my October CC payment instead of taking the money from the Presents Saving Pot. Although I have paid our general savings as usual - regular saver, Car Fund & premium bonds, I haven't been able to allocate money to any of our Savings Pots yet. This is because the boiler repair is still an unknown. I know how much the dual servicing costs as that's a fixed rate & also the cost of the part, but I don't know how much it will cost to fit it. I am thinking not too much as it is a quick job. As morning had passed without a visit or call from the engineer, I was intending to give them until 2pm before phoning to chase, but before that, I had call from the shop to say that the part has still not been delivered. This is not their fault, but the supplier. The engineer ordered the part while he was still at our house on Monday morning & expected it to be with them as usual on Tuesday or Wednesday. It wasn't so he chased it & was told it would now be Thurs or Fri & as I was going to be in, I didn't much mind. I understand the engineer has now b*ll*cked them as when they said they'd ordered one, they didn't mention that the part was in fact on 'back order', which is different to the usual 'next day' timescale & means they take a list of customers wanting the part to supply when they do arrive. While I am hoping for Monday, I am not at all confident that it will be, although have been promised I will be priority job as soon as the blimming thing arrives. Not that you need to know this level of detail......but it's the reason I didn't quite finish October's budget setting this morning. It's possible that the invoice will be for an amount I can cover from my monthly budget without recourse to dipping into the House & Garden Savings Pot. Yes, I know that's what it's for, but I have another house repair waiting to be an annoying expense too, so I want to leave my payment options open on the gas thing.
*Use-it-up nosebag tonight. Intend to bake some haddock fillets coated in tandoori spices & serve it with homemade bombay potatoes (from freezer) & stir-fried courgettes. 
*Made tomorrow's packed lunch & breakfast as Mr F unfortunately has to work to cover staff shortage.
*Didn't need to bake bread as discovered we had sufficient rolls left to do us for another day. Will do it tomorrow instead. I like to ensure we don't run out, but also like to balance that against baking a nice new loaf which then sits there getting stale because there was still older bread to use up.
*Picked a little posy of flowers from the garden. I know I've said this before, but I love my purple Dartington flower bottle. The narrow neck means that even a single bloom or spray of interesting foraged cones or berries make an effective display. 
My steps are absolute rubbish today as have spent so much time at my desk or just pottering around Foxgloves HQ. I don't want to break my long streak of not being sedentary so I am going to sign out of here, have a 5 min filing session, then I intend to head out for a walk around the village.
Love to all, hope your purses have been closed more than they've been open today!
F x

foxgloves

Well, I did go for that walk. Saw a cute tabby, a mouse & what I can only describe as an absolutely classic 'male appendage substitute' car with an exhaust like 6 tractors being driven by a complete (insert choice of word)-head.
But I've achieved my daily steps.
F

rtandon27

Oh the sights you see when wandering around the village 🤣🤣🤣 

In the time it took us to do the 5 mins to the physio at the edge of our town - we saw 5 illegal scooters and 2 parked police vehicles - OH cursed at all 7 of them (not that it got the 5 off the road in anyway shape or form) - Those Illegal modes of transportation are the bane of our existance - we've lost track of the times we missed one by inches!  Thankfullly no adventures on the way back as I"m aching and would not have had patience for the colourful language!

ladyholly

foxgloves said:

Well, I did go for that walk. Saw a cute tabby, a mouse & what I can only describe as an absolutely classic 'male appendage substitute' car with an exhaust like 6 tractors being driven by a complete (insert choice of word)-head.
But I've achieved my daily steps.
F

But Mr LH hasnt been out in the car for a couple of days.

PennysIntoPounds

ladyholly said:

foxgloves said:

Well, I did go for that walk. Saw a cute tabby, a mouse & what I can only describe as an absolutely classic 'male appendage substitute' car with an exhaust like 6 tractors being driven by a complete (insert choice of word)-head.
But I've achieved my daily steps.
F

But Mr LH hasnt been out in the car for a couple of days.

🤣 @ladyholly

foxgloves

@ladyholly - Oh that did make me laugh! I don't think it was a Mr LH type of classic car. This was more the type that had been adapted to sound as loud as possible before being spread liberally with superglue & reversed at speed through Half*rd's!

rtandon27

@foxgloves - sounds like one of the meatheads from my town got lost on the way home!