Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

Well, this morning's garden session was very enjoyable. I managed to pot up all the geraniums, having given them a good pruning in the process & most of them are now indoors. I am short of pot holders - I think I broke a couple & sent one to the charity shop as I didn't much like it, so that is something I intend to buy this weekend. I don't want anything fancy, plain white would be fine, so I will try a couple of places in town, maybe a couple of charity shops too, & if no luck, will move the search onto garden centres. It was pleasant working in the greenhouse & Soot came out to keep me company......although this wasn't as altruistic as it first appeared, as was actually the beginning of an extended & exceedingly persistent lunch pester. 
A few minor bits of financial admin this afternoon, so money stuff feeling nicely under control. I don't know if you recall that over the summer, I suddenly had an email from the Cephalopods saying that I'd need to increase my monthly DD by over 60%. It was, I think, a bizarre malfunction of their AI predictor tool because when I checked that, it was saying that I was currently paying that huge amount but needed to pay their recommended amount, which was the amount I'd been paying. Weird. I checked my own figures & we were actually sitting on a bigger credit balance than the same time last year, so it made no sense, I got in touch to say I wouldn't be paying it & tbf, the customer services person I spoke to said she could understand my confusion. Anyway, I received an email last week saying that they were going to reduce my DD by £29 pm as I am paying too much. So that would be from c. £140 pm to c. £110 pm. I've signed into the predictor tool thingy this afternoon & already it's showing that I should be paying £109 ! Well, I like a good credit balance so have compromised & set our new payment at £120. That's a £20 saving per month, but should help us retain a decent credit balance for winter. I can revisit it again in March. Input new figure on Spreadsheet 1 (Bills/DDs). As I mentioned in a previous post, I think there have only been 2, at the most, 3, occasions since the last week of Sept, that the CH has even come on. We have it set at 18.5 degrees (we have a gas stove in the living room if evenings get particularly chilly as we get into winter) & mostly when I've checked the thermostat (which is kept in our chilly hall), it has been showing 18.5 - 19.5 without any heating. I don't expect this will last too long. News websites are sure soon to start predicting snowmageddon, which for all those of us who are not Scottish wildcats is likely to mean colder temperatures & maybe some frost. Today my oyster catcher mug went back in the cupboard & has been replaced with my frosty robin one. I do like a seasonal mug!
Right, that's enough chat. I think I will go & have a quick stock-take of herbs & spices in case there's anything I've overlooked for the eco-refill shop tomorrow. Then I think I'll have some honey & lemon in my robin mug.
Take care, m'dears. We live in interesting times.
F x

rtandon27

ah @foxgloves - I too love a seasonal mug!  I'm currently alternating between the pumpkin orange one that says 'It's Autumn' and my EB splurge 'Magic Potion' (personal spends of course) - OH on the other hand is a creature of habit and uses the three printed with an image of his childhood haunt.

foxgloves

@rtandon27 - I have been hanging my nose over EB's autumn mugs but haven't succumbed yet, though I might! I also like her St. Valentine's Day mug painted with random loveheart sweeties, just as I remember them from the 1970s. Mr F buys me one of her diaries for Christmas every year. The 2026 one is so pretty. They really suit me (you know what a planner I am) as each month also has a double page planner which I use for meal plans, plus a page for notes on which I jot things I need to remember on that month's Big Budget Day. 
F

foxgloves

Dear Diary Readers,
A truly Autumn day today. Mr F had intended to get outside early to mow the lawn, but we woke to thick fog so decided to treat ourself to breakfast at the village farm shop to give it a chance to clear & the ground to dry a little. Very civilised start to our day - we took the crossword to see if we could make any inroads into that - but when we got home the fog was just as thick as ever & the lawn still very dew-sodden. Never mind, budget-friendly bits of today as follows:
*Had a free coffee from fully-stamped loyalty card.
*Bought some nice yellow-stickered rolls as Mr F felt certain a bread crisis was imminent here at Foxgloves Manor.
*Made tomorrow's packed lunch & breakfast.
*Planted out the strawberry runners I potted up a few weeks ago, as their root systems looked really good. I have 2 spare ones in the cold frame in case I lose any over winter but they're usually pretty hardy.
*Took the cucumber frame down in the greenhouse & re-used the growbag for sowing some rocket. It's a bit later than I like to sow it, but it got overlooked with our holiday then plague so we may not have viable leaves until Feb/March, but no matter as any fresh salad will be welcome. Watered baby lettuce plants.
*Mr F pulled up the finished courgette & tromboncino plants which provided.......
*Today's garden pickings: 1 tromboncino which I had missed!
*He also lifted all the agapanthus pots into the greenhouse so I don't lose them if we suddenly have frosty nights & packed away the greenhouse shading for next year. It's nasty plasticky stuff so we intend to use it for absolutely as long as possible before consigning it to landfill. 
*Chatted through our diaries so we know what we're doing over the coming week & I noted a couple of changes to Mr F's working schedule where it looks as though I could have a bit of extra car access.
*Booked our flu jabs. What a palaver that was! Mr F booked his free one easily enough but I couldn't get past a particular screen which refused to load despite 3 attempts. It seemed to be some kind of loop (possibly because the booking scheme was over-busy) so in the end, Mr F booked me in on his laptop & we managed to get the same morning so only one trip to town & car park charge required.
*Ordered birthday present for nephew. Used 10% off new customer discount.
*Added a series of books to my library wish list.
It's not my cooking night as we are still in 'trying against all the odds to create some freezer space' mode, there isn't much cooking to do as we are having spaghetti with a container of the bolognese sauce I batch cooked the other week. I am going to read the Sunday papers, carry on with my book, knit some more sock & have a nice hot bubble bath. Wishing everyone a peaceful evening. I didn't feel so great again yesterday - that lingering coviddy headache again - but am much brighter today so I am really hoping for a more productive week. I am happiest when I am well in control of everything, so that's going to be my aim. Apart from a city centre trip & staying on for a night out, I have plenty of days over this coming week to get my shizz together (including mid-month budget check-in) & to feel like a normal Foxgloves again.
Love to all,
F x

rtandon27

foxgloves said:

...m happiest when I am well in control of everything, so that's going to be my aim...

dearest @foxgloves - you are a woman after my own heart!  - I completely understand where you are coming from on this - I find living life easier when I'm on top of all the moving parts! - A planner with coloured pens is my favorite way to spend a chunk of my weekend! - nothing like pen and paper to help the brain visulize 'all the things' 🩷🩷🩷

foxgloves

@rtandon27 - Yes, I'm definitely on the same page as you where planning is concerned.....especially when it involves notebooks & coloured pens & pencils. That bit of planning time yesterday means I can advance into this week with more of a sense of purpose than of late & I will hopefully feel more 'together' at the end of it. 
Soot already doing zoomies in anticipation of his breakfast.
F x

foxgloves

Hello Monday Money Savers,
Well, I hope I am not tempting fate by saying that this is the most like a 'normal Foxgloves' I have felt for a fortnight, so I think the covid has pretty much been vanquished. I'm still a bit sinussy & have a cough, but the other symptoms have gone at last. I started to feel ill exactly this time two weeks ago so am well ready to feel back to normal tbh!
Right,I shall get today's budget-friendly efforts logged, then I'm going to talk about something Mr F & I have found ourselves saying more often recently when comparing prices. I bet you all do or say something similar. Anyway, today's budget helpers first:
*Did 3 loads of laundry. Pegged out nice & early once the drizzle had stopped as we were only flagged as a 10% chance of rain today, with a gradual brightening up into the afternoon. Oh hahahahahaaa....excuse me while my sides split with mirth. No sooner got back inside & taken off my shoes when the rain had the audacity to return & step up a gear. Ran out & brought some back in for the heated airer. Left the towels out as no room for them. Oh & the brightening up bit? Nope! That hasn't happened either. Don't know where that weather forecast came from, but my guess is out of a cracker.
*Garden pickings: 3 peppers...........which.........
*I put with the 3 others I picked the other day & prepped & froze them, apart from one which will go in tomorrow's tamale pie.
*A look in the green tomato ripening bag revealed oodles of ripe ones in need of use so did a quick triage of those - some prepped for aforementioned pie, 600g peeled, chopped & frozen ready for making smoky black bean chilli at some point & the rest turned into a double batch of Cranks lentil & tomato soup, which provided a small mugful to go with my lunch, a portion for Mr F's packed lunch tomorrow & 5 containers for freezing.
*Baked bread.
*Made tomorrow's packed breakfast.
*Did post-weekend budget updates. Noted an anomaly which may need a call to the bank. A small thing caused by me getting in a muddle....I put it down to having covid-head at the time. Will check tomorrow & see if it has righted itself.
*Very low effort meal as Mr F cooked enough lovely butternut macaroni cheese on Saturday to feed us tonight as well. Shall just need to lob it in the oven & cook some french beans to add a bit more veg.
*Perused home & contents insurance renewal documents. A monthly dd rise of £2.77 which is much better than I was anticipating. Same provider as our car insurance & they were extremely good a couple of years ago when that car drove into the back of ours & caused a lot of damage. One of those things where you feel better paying a little extra because you know they 'did what it said on the tin' when we needed help.
Right, I'll just get that other post on, then I must go & get the rest of the laundry in before it damps down even more for the night.
Hope everyone's got off to a decent start to the week. If not, the week is young, so just start it again tomorrow & see if that brings a better day.
F x

foxgloves

Bit of money saving based musing.....
I've noticed recently that we quite regularly say the same thing when comparing the price of something of higher quality (& more expensive) with something not of quite the same quality but cheaper. We say, "It's good, but it's not <Insert price differential> good". 
Here's an example from our recent holiday in Northumbria. We didn't book our usual cottage as we felt the rental had increased to an amount we didn't want to pay, given that we weren't holidaying in peak season, around a bank holiday or anything like that. We loved staying in that cottage. It was very nice, presented to a high quality with a fab view & in easy walking distance of all the amenities plus beautiful beach. Instead, we decided to try a different cottage which we hadn't stayed in before. The rent was £500 LESS than our previous cottage for the week. We had a lovely time there. The cottage had everything we could have wanted/needed, was also central to all the amenities & only an extra 3 or 4 mins to the beach, it had a pleasant but not such an amazing view from the windows. It was fitted out & presented very well, not quite to the quality we remembered from the other one. We really enjoyed staying there & both declared that we'd like to book it again in 2 or 3 years time for another week's holiday. Our overall view was that the first cottage was lovely, but it wasn't "an extra £500 lovely" and it occurred to me how much we seem to use this comparison about all sorts of other things when thinking about quality & prices. Yes, one thing might be better quality & that will often (though not always) mean a higher price tag. But once one has calculated the exact price differential - i.e This fab coffee costs £4 per bag more than this other very nice coffee - that's the time to stop & think, ah, but is it actually £4 extra worth of nice? Sometimes the answer can be 'Yes', but quite often, it isn't & there will be something available that is very good quality for less money. 
Out of interest, I compared the rental on the two aforementioned cottages for a random Autumn week in the future, & the gap had opened up by another £100. That means that the amount saved by renting the smaller not-quite-so-plush-but-very-nice cottage would actually be enough to pay for another holiday. 
So I suppose we are using the "It's nice, but it's not <insert price differential> nice" comparison to address how much extra we are prepared to pay for top quality, & finding doubtless like a lot of canny folk on here, that nice/good enough quality while also keeping some of our money very often wins out over going for all out la-di-dah fancypants.
I suppose another well-known example is that old classic - the branded versus own-label stuff. There are not that many products I care enough about to insist on branded because I mostly don't regard the price differential as bringing me anything better quality.
Ah well, time to hone the grey cells ready for tonight's TV quizzes. I don't want Mr F getting more answers than me!
F x

PennysIntoPounds

Constant user of the phrase 'it is nice but it's not £X nicer' here!
Just yesterday we went for a nice autumn stroll and to visit a nice pub, and while we had a nice time we won't be going there again particularly soon as the (not even particularly interesting) beers were a quid extra. So for two people having two pints, we were very much of the mind that 'it's nice, but it's not best part of a fiver nicer!'

Very glad you're feeling much more chipper, hopefully that's your immune system super boosted against all ailments for winter now 

themadvix

Glad to hear you're feeling better Foxgloves!

Totally agree about the comparison of quality and value. I think I may have taken it as far as you can go when, after putting in an offer on a house a few years ago, I rescinded it, because it was more expensive than others we'd looked at based solely on location - the nearby market town, which is posher than our town, but not worth the extra in my view!

I snuck a peek at NT cottages yesterday and was horrified at the cost - £650 for 3 nights?! What? I'm sure they are lovely, but equally they can't be that lovely! (I know you're contributing to charity too, but they get plenty of my money anyway). We haven't rented a cottage for a holiday in a long time, partly because of the cost since Covid, but even so, I doubt many are that expensive. We'll stick to a tent/caravan and the odd night in a hotel.