Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

joedenise

That'll be the longest free session we've ever had I think.  I'd planned a lamb tagine for next week so have got the lamb out of the freezer to defrost and will marinade overnight once it's defrosted and then will use the free electric to cook it - takes about 2.5 hours so plenty of time to cook it.  Might as well do it tomorrow and then freeze it ready for next week.

Baileys_Babe

I had the same information as @themadvix @joedenise and @Sun_Addict

Free electricity tonight 9-10 pm and then tomorrow afternoon 12-3pm.

Not sure how we are going to make the most of the free three hours, I'm planning to clean both the dishwasher and washing machine, run the free standing radiators, use the oven - I have no idea what for at this stage.

@foxgloves I hope you can make the most of the 4 hours of electric 

Baileys_Babe

joedenise said:

That'll be the longest free session we've ever had I think.  I'd planned a lamb tagine for next week so have got the lamb out of the freezer to defrost and will marinade overnight once it's defrosted and then will use the free electric to cook it - takes about 2.5 hours so plenty of time to cook it.  Might as well do it tomorrow and then freeze it ready for next week.

Good idea 💡 

foxgloves

I will defo make good use of it. One good thing about washing bed linen this morning is that it has blown completely dry outside. No need for any heated airer time at all! I have a big load of towels to wash tonight between 9 & 10pm as if they don't dry outside tomorrow, I can run the heated airer in the 3 hrs. Mr F apparently has stuff for charging. Our CH, hot water & oven/hob are all gas & our car is a hybrid but not a plug-in one so we don't use as much electricity as some, but we'll enjoy seeing what we can do nevertheless.
F

weenancyinAmerica

Hope you have a great anniversary day-out on Monday. Want to hear most of the details.

foxgloves

Thank-you @weenancyinAmerica. I shall do my best to tell you about our little anniversary outing (old house) as I know you like history
F

foxgloves

Dear Readers,
Well, very definitely not a no-spend day as we needed ink cartridges (what a stupid price they are) & a big bag of Soot's special biscuits. Could probably find the latter a bit cheaper online, but we like to support our local indie pet shop, which carries a very wide range of useful stock & is highly unlikely to be owned by a hedge fund. Also stocked up on a supplement I like to take, which were on a 'Buy 2, get 1 free' offer. The small size box would have meant paying less money today, but Mr F worked out the price of an individual capsule & it was much better value to go for the larger size. All these items will be paid from relevant Savings Pots funds - we always use a credit card for this kind of purchase to maximise loyalty vouchers. I never bother with cashback apps - tried it once, massive faff, so we each have 1 CC - providers chosen based on preferred vouchers. Here I go, digressing.....back to today.....
Made good use of the 3 free electricity hours. 2 loads of laundry, heated airer, dehumidifier, ironed the bedlinen I washed yesterday, charging, coffee machine. 
Mr F's cooking night. He's making another lovely butternut macaroni cheese using some of our homegrown Guatemalan blue squash, which will feed us on Monday night too. 
Interesting piece in the 'Guardian' today about people's experience of recent food inflation. The biggest one we've noticed is ground coffee. I hadn't really picked up on beef mince inflation because our local butcher always has such good prices/offers. Our main weekly shop is usually done at Waitbl00m with meat & often veg from our local market butcher & greengrocer & miscellaneous items from the eco-refill shop. This includes all household cleaning stuff, loo rolls, etc, & most cat food (except Soot's special biscuits), but NOT milk & juice (from milkman) & a fish box 4 or 5 times a year, for which I budget separately. Although I do allow extra food money when we have people to stay, for example, & for a free-range turkey at Christmas, I haven't increased our monthly food budget (£350) for quite a few years & am not intending to do so as to me, our total food spend still feels pretty reasonable for 2 people & 2 cats & we know there'd be 'fat to trim' from that should we need to do so. We are finding that we make the best savings when we have put the most effort into meal planning. Obviously growing some food ourselves helps a fair bit as it can be frozen or preserved for future months & used in batch cooking but like a lot us us on here, our keystone is meal planning - particularly a monthly master plan - & ALWAYS shopping with a list. 
What other food items have you all noticed increasing in price? Mr F says eggs. I'm wondering if the better quality yoghurt brands & cat meat have levelled out a bit compared to a couple of years ago, but it may be illusory & they are now just rising more slowly.
Oooh, I've just been offered a glass of wine. Can hardly refuse all those helpful polyphenols, can I? Anyway, I've yakked on quite enough, so will wish you a relaxing evening.....or a fab wild one if you're heading out.
F x

PennysIntoPounds

We've certainly noticed the sometimes week on week increase on ground coffee, and try to use occasional survey cashouts that only give vouchers to lessen the pain.
Chocolate has gone up massively too, not much one can do about climate issue emergencies and it's of course a worse situation for the growers than the buyers, but as the Christmas tubs are out and shops are competing, we're now trying to buy those as it's a much more reasonable rate when on offer per grams. The difficulty is not scoffing the entire thing!

Enjoy your wine and Saturday night 🥂😊

Makingabobor2

Good quality chocolate, coffee & bread seem to be the main price rises. 

foxgloves

Oh yes, I agree, especially regarding chocolate. I mean, even rubbish chocolate has gone up a lot...& shrinkflation too, not just size, but in the quality of ingredients. Well-known brands of chocolate biscuits now having to describe themselves as 'chocolate flavour' because there's no longer sufficient cocoa in the brown coating to qualify as actual chocolate!! Outrageous! 
And I don't think I'm imagining smaller chocs & sweeties in certain well known festive tins.
And 3 in packs of things which used to have 4, 5 in previous packs of 6, etc.
As my old Nana would have said, "It's a swizz!"
F