Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

Sun_Addict

Thankfully the current cats aren’t bothered about Christmas decorations but our old boy was a devil with the tree. One year I caught him casually batting a bauble and I chastised him then seconds later he shinned up the centre of the tree and we couldn’t get him out of it. The baubles were falling off left, right and centre. He was a little devil that cat. 

DawnW

A bowlful of woolly baubles does sound like a cat 'accident' waiting to happen @foxgloves

foxgloves

@PennysIntoPounds & @DawnW - Amazingly, I can report that the bowl of knitted baubles so far remains untouched. Ash did climb up to have a look, as he is so deeply suspicious of anything new, but as yet, none have been bashed around the room. 

@Sun_Addict - What a naughty boy! Our cats have varied with regards to their interest in the Christmas tree. It was actually our big old ginger & white boy, who'd been a long-term stray, who was the least interested in the tree out of all our cats, but nevertheless, it was he who almost inflicted the most damage simply down to his colossal size & muscle. We have a bow window in our living room so a nice big wide sill for the tree. He had been having a little pat at a bauble & managed to get one of his enormous claws hooked in the wire loop attaching it to the tree. He was well & truly stuck & thankfully I spotted this at the point where he was implementing his solution, which was to pull as hard as he could & keep pulling! By the time I'd raced across the room to free him, the tree & everything on it was already at a precarious angle. I managed to sort of shore it up with my shoulder while unhooking his claw. No harm done, but if he had tried this stunt while nobody was there to see, I think we'd have returned to a horizontal tree, soil everywhere & a heap of broken treasures. 

foxgloves

Afternoon Money Savers,
Hope everyone is managing at least a reasonably decent day. It's been another quite low key one here at Foxgloves Manor, but that suits me fine as I am content to spend my December days on festive activities. I would have liked to get out into the garden for a couple of hours of weeding & clearing today, but after yesterday's non-stop rain, I decided it'd be too muddy for my kneeling stool so I've been doing indoor tasks instead. Budget-friendly efforts, such as they are, as follows:
*Baked bread. 
*Turned out Christmas cake baked yesterday. Pleased with it.
*Batch-cooked some dhal - slow cooker recipe, some of which will be eaten as a 'side' with tomorrow's meal & the rest portioned & frozen.
*Made fudge (Christmas present) - had to pause this while I quickly served up cat lunch as they were both on pester mode. Soot was shocking in his persistence, which began even earlier than usual today, but then Ash joined him & said he was also on the brink of expiring from starvation. As this (& winding around legs) wasn't compatible with volcanic pans of dairy & sugar, I gave in & fed the b*ggers early. Despite 'cat help', the fudge looks good & I shall cut it up later, though first I need to.......
*....look through my wrappings stash for a little box which I can cover & gussy up in which to present the fudge. I've found one the perfect shape, but it's a little too big, so I will see if I can cut off & remake that end. I think it should look quite pretty when it's done.
*Wrapped another small present which I had put up on a shelf away from cats & forgotten about.
*Wrote a birthday card as will be seeing this person at the weekend so may as well save on a stamp.
*Did a couple of surveys & cashed some of my Ips*s points out for a coffee shop e-giftcard. Pleased to see there is a bigger range of rewards now. There used to be a good choice but it did dwindle. I don't use the big behemoth online emporium, so payment in their giftcards is of no interest to me. Plenty available now though for places I do use.
*Did a couple of budget updates. Really trying to keep on top of these this month with lots of different transactions happening. Knowledge is power & all that!
Apart from sorting out the fudge box, I'm about done for jobs today. Dinner is kedgeree so v low effort there, esp as I've already flaked up the smoked mackerel & chopped the hardboiled egg. I am hoping to find some mindless Christmas cookery TV to watch later this afternoon while knitting the last of the presents socks. Oh, & ideally I'd like to get a town list written for tomorrow. I want to be in town nice & early as the free December weekend parking has started & there is also a Christmas market, so I think spaces will quickly be filled up. Oh, thinking about that, there IS another task I want to do.....I need to check my wreath making supplies box as I have promised to make my sister a door wreath this year as well. I have plenty of stuff to wire onto one wreath, but having promised, shall just need to check it will stretch to two. If not, I shall pop in a cheapo shop tomorrow for a few extra bits & bobs. Mostly the wreaths will consist of greenery snipped from our garden.
OK, that's me for today!
F x

foxgloves

Hello Weekend Readers,
Glad we were both able to fall back to sleep last night after a weird happening at about 1.30am. We were awoken by a successive series of bangs & lots of them, which in the still of the night sounded like rapid gunshots. I jumped out of bed to have a look & could also see flashes, so assumed in my half-asleep state that it was some kind of electrical or fire emergency further up the street. Then I realised I could see colours reflected in the upstairs windows of the house opposite & realised it was......bloody fireworks!! At 1.30am on a random night in December!! Nothing going on in neighbours' gardens so we think some selfish idiots let off a considerable amount of display-sized fireworks in the field by the roundabout at the back of our end of the village. Poor Soot was very worried & sat near the front door hoping that whatever it was wasn't going to come in. I bet that local dog owners had some stressed animals to deal with.
Anyway, onto today's budget-helping activities. Very low key, actually. 
*Took advantage of the council's free weekend car parking by going into town for the Christmas market. Very festive, although no money left my purse as had been to another craft market last weekend.
*Enjoyed a coffee in our favourite ancient cafe - budget-neutral as used our Personal Spends.
*Managed to get a few little extra bits & pieces for my wreath making from the trusty shop which rhymes with 'toys'. It worked out cheaper to buy Christmassy ribbon from the haberdashery section, especially as it was better quality & can be re-used for future years. Big note to self - although I do have enough fir cones for the 2 wreaths I intend to make, I did notice that bags of them (in what is a very bargainaceous shop) were priced at £5.99. I see so many when I am out & about on walks & must do what Mum always did - i.e Collect a few at a time to put away for seasonal crafts. It seems mad paying pretty much £6 for a bag of something we probably all walk past & ignore all year, which then just lie & rot in the rain. Did not buy any cones & the little bits I did buy, wire, ribbon, etc, were inexpensive & reusable.
*Quick swing round via Waitbl00m to pick up our free jar of preserves from their 'Little Treats' scheme - something I never buy because I make it myself, so I chose a jar of fig jam as something a bit different. It has a very long date so it can even sit in the pantry until we are hosting Christmas next year if necessary. Mr F pleased to see that the £1.90 Adn*ms offer was on, his opinion being that you 'can't leave it in the shop for that price'. Managed to buy some bun cases. Not muffin cases, not cupcake cases, not 'papers' but good old-fashioned bun-sized cases which seem harder to find these days than the larger varieties. Am trying a new recipe next week so was cutting it fine for finding some.
*Joint decision only to do a quick house clean this week as it doesn't look too bad at all, so we agreed to do as much as we could in 40 mins - usual minimal products & washable cloths.
*Rounded up odds & ends of milk in the fridge (including some leftover evaporated from fudge making) & it will be used to make a rice pudding tonight. 
*Did a survey.
*Put out today's Advent item - Christmas tumblers - mine has a robin design & Mr F's has random festive cats. Also received first Christmas cards today. Lovely when they plop onto the doormat. There are some clever & pretty e-cards around, I know, but they just don't do it for me, neither do 'round robin letters'. Posted our cards today too, except for the final one in which I intend to enclose a letter. 
Well, apart from sorting out my witchy tresses, that is it for tasks today. It's Mr F's cooking night. I intend to read, & we might begin watching the latest series of 'Slow Horses' tonight. 
Have a cosy one,
F x

PennysIntoPounds

Ugh, what an unnecessary nonsense with the fireworks. I feel like such a killjoy thinking it, but I would be so glad for sales of domestic fireworks to be banned. I know many people use them responsibly but they still cause so much stress and damage, and as for those who don't use them responsibly...

Agree with Mr F that it would be a crying shame to leave beers in the shop at a good price!

Sounds a very productive, mse, and joyful day.
We only got to see the first couple of series of Slow Horses but loved it, at some point we will get to see the rest, something to look forward to 😊

Baileys_Babe

I took prefer bun cases, I use paper ones for cakes I'm taking to friends/family, donating to cake stalls etc, but those that I'm serving at home I bought reusable silicone bun/fairy cake cases.

This coming week I'm intending to bake some mincemeat buns, the recipe was given to me by a friend and it states very clearly that you need to use bun cases 😀

foxgloves

@PennysIntoPounds - You'll have the rest of the series to look forward to. I'm looking forward to watching his Zoe Boehm series too. I've read the first 2 novels & enjoyed them as I do like a strong female character.

@Baileys_Babe - Mincemeat buns will be very festive. I am intending to make mincemeat muffins for New Year when we have friends coming over. I also like making the Cranks belgian cake & cutting it into little squares, as it freezes well for lunch boxes, etc. The bun cases are for some ginger buns - a new recipe to me.

foxgloves

Hello Sunday Savers,
Not been particularly focused on budget thoughts today as have been out on a festive meet-up with Mr F's sis & B-i-L. A lovely catch-up over a farm shop (in grounds of a Tudor hall) breakfast & exchanged gifts. So today's efforts are:
*Underspent the amount of money I put aside for this morning's posh cafe breakfast by £9 so we were able to choose a few festive treats from the even posher deli without touching December's budget.
*Divided up the leftover Indian spiced chicken which Mr F roasted yesterday. Enough for tonight with a portion of home made jacket wedges, for spicy chicken & cannellini bean pittas tomorrow, plus some added to a box of rice & dhal for an extremely long work shift on Tues plus a filled bagel for tomorrow's packed lunch. I still think a chicken is one of the best roasts for making multiple meals.
*Went through next week in my diary allocating various tasks to each day. Am now feeling nicely in control.
Onwards into a new week, m'dears! Best foot forwards & all that jazz.
F x
P.S Today's Advent items. Christmas hessian shopping bag hung up rtg on next town trip & a bunch of gold-sprayed poppy seedheads brought out & arranged in my purple flower bottle. 

amber03

I did that last night foxglove, allocating Xmas jobs to the next few days. If I manage to keep to it, then come the end of the week, everything should be done and I can finally have a relaxing run up to Xmas.

If you need anybody tester for your mincemeat muffins, Im your gal.