Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

Sun_Addict

It's so lovely to see signs of spring and the garden coming back to life again - apart from the weeds that is!

foxgloves

The weeds have gone crackers, @Sun_Addict from all the rain I suppose & the fact that it hasn't been a cold enough winter to knock some of the annual ones out. I really am going to have oodles of weeding to do, but on the positive side, I know that's going to uncover lots of self-seeded freebie treasures.

badmemory

Maybe you can tell me why the freezer inventory that I update every time I put something in or take something out always has errors. It is a spreadsheet on a computer that gets turned on when I get up & not off until I am going to bed, even when I am out of the house. At under 50watts an hour I am not worrying about the electric. I get so annoyed with myself as it seems so inefficient.

Suffolk_lass

A bit 0ff-topic, but I just wondered, when you strip your bedding ready for the next day, do you run your washing machine overnight at a reduced rate? I am on a 2-rate tariff and it is 00.30-07.30 from the Octopeds, so particularly white towels and cotton bedding, I wash overnight in winter, so I can do a periodic hot wash (which I am assured by the washing machine engineer, helps to deal with any residual laundry gloop and keeps the machine running well). The duvet cover at the moment is an easy-care one so that is reserved for a cooler wash but the sheet and pillow cases (and the towels) need a good "do" every month for the benefit of the machine (in between, they get a cooler wash).

Oh, and yes, wasn't it wonderful, being able to get out in the garden for a while. Over here, it is shopping and gardening planned for today.

I have exactly the sameme thing here @badmemory - I have a print now, on the side of the kitchen FF and I try to keep that updated, at least in relation to the chest freezer!

foxgloves

Hi @Suffolk_lass, No, I don't do overnight laundry on a night-time tariff. I used to, but we no longer have our old 'Economy 7' tariff because we had our old storage heaters removed prior to having gas CH installed as part of our 2020-2022 refurb. I launder bedlinen on 'Eco-wash' which is quite a long cycle but soaks the dirt out rather than thrashing it about. I was told by an asst in JL's white goods dept to run a 90° cycle monthly to keep everything running well & to get rid of residue, etc. In fact, he actually said something along the lines of, "This is the point at which I should be trying to sell you an extended warranty, but you're not going to need one, are you, because you're going to run a 90° cycle with plain water every month". I don't do it that regularly by any means but when I do, I chuck in a cup of vinegar too. I don't usually add laundry items to this service cycle unless I have white cotton bedlinen which I think would benefit from brightening up.

F

foxgloves

@badmemory - The problem with my freezer lists is that despite being organised into categories & written up neatly in my notebook, I invariably cease updating them after about a week, so instead of a cumulative log of freezer contents, they are really more of a snapshot of what's in our freezers at a specific time. That is useful in terms of knowledge & feeds in really well to the next couple of meal plans, but it isn't really of any functional value after that. My main freezer issue is that Mr F is obsessed with freezer tetris. We have nowhere to put a chest freezer, which as we are veg growers & keen on batch cooking, would be very useful. Honestly, if there was a World Championship in packing the maximum amount into a freezer, he would be a serious contender. However, this means that I can never find anything. I just get used to where things are, then confidently go looking for a container I saw on the top of the 2nd draw yesterday & it has vanished deep into the icy depths or into the other freezer. It drives me mad, but I know I'm lucky to have a partner who enjoys cooking, does a fair share of household tasks & enjoys shopping, so I put up with the endless freezer reorganisation & just start at the top & work down when the latest container has performed a vanishing act.

F

foxgloves

Dear Readers,

Today I decided that what I needed to do was Random Tasks. You know the sort of things….they get put off & before long they cease to become a Random Task & have become an Annoying Job. I would far rather tackle random tasks than annoying jobs, so that was my thinking behind today. Of course ironing is always annoying, so I started with that just to get it out of the way.

The budget-friendly tasks were:

*Put a colour on my hair. MUCH cheaper than the regular salon colours I used to book back in the day. I only need to waft the straighteners at it tomorrow morning & I shall look like I've had a proper tidy-up.

*Filled up the bird feeders. I've been meaning to buy them a new bag of peanuts but decided that they can also be on 'use-it-up' so no new supplies will be purchased until everything currently in stock has been eaten.

*Scrubbed out bird bath. I cut up an old rather abrasive towel for the rag bag recently & it was brilliant for this grubby job. Birds will think they are having a spa session!

*Wrote a letter - already had the card & a stamp from my stash - then a sunny walk down to the post box.

*Pleasant greenhouse session potting up chilli seedlings. Now covered with home made bottle cloches standing in home made 'saucers' (the base of large yoghurt pots) on our sunny bow windowsill. I am hoping they don't attract too much feline attention.

*Checked greenhouse seed trays not really expecting anything to have emerged yet, but found that cosmos, tagetes 'lemon gem', ageratum & broccoli are already germinating.

*Entered a competition.

*Updated grocery budget after yesterday's shopping. Another week of coming in under target, although we may need a little fresh stuff over the weekend, I'll see. There is already over £32-92 in our new Grocery Underspend Pot so I wonder if we will be adding to it at the end of March.

*And in cat news…..they had their annual check-up booster jabs yesterday so that will be covered from the Meow Pot. Soot passed with flying colours for his age (13). The vet said he isn't overweight BUT he is very much at the top end of an acceptable weight, so he "doesn't need to be getting any bigger". Mr F explained that Soot's daily food is very much controlled by us & that we always watch to make sure he isn't eating Ash's food as well as his own, with Ash being much more of a grazer. Ash didn't do as well. Remember he had a full dental last November to sort out some dodgy teeth, 4 of which were removed? Well, the vet had a good look to see how they had healed up & spotted that there is a piece of root left behind starting to cause inflammation. So he's booked in to have it removed. There is no charge for this because it is covered by aftercare following his original surgery, so financially that was good news, but of course we would rather poor old Ash didn't have to have a further general anaesthetic & extraction. He was very unimpressed with 'nil by mouth' last time……goodness only knows what would happen if Soot ever needs to be nil-by-mouth - I think he'd be drilling a tunnel into the pantry!

*Tonight's nosebag feels like a freebie - gigantes plakis I batch-cooked for the freezer a while back with crusty home baked bread.

*Did a couple of surveys.

And now I think it's time for a few chapters of my book. Am in the city centre tomorrow so must make sure I don't allow myself to get tempted as there really is nothing either of us needs at the moment.

Enjoy your evenings,

F x

Humdinger1

Drilling a tunnel into the pantry- or maybe training to pole vault? Your meows are utterly hilarious @foxgloves! Love Humdinger xx

foxgloves

Hello Monday Readers,

A useful weekend in which we enjoyed a slower start to the day after a night out at the opera, but then cracked on with loft tasks & also some useful garden stuff. I am now feeling I can see progress with clearing & cutting back & of course, the more old stems I chop out, the better the Spring bulbs show, so win-win. The chilli babies I potted up & arranged under bottle cloches on the living room windowsill seem to be doing well & have so far had no 'help' from naughty felines. Anyway, as usual Monday has been all about setting us up for the week ahead, so budget-friendly efforts as follows:

*Did 2 loads of laundry plus handwashed a velvet dress. All pegged out. Neither sun nor breeze today however, so I know most of it will need some heated airer time too.

*Baked a crusty loaf.

*Did my usual Monday morning budget updates. More than usual to do today as there were various funds to move around, i.e from the Meow Pot to cover their annual vet check-ups/jabs & from the Holiday Pot for paying the balance on our mini-break next month.

*Tackled my email inbox & was able to get rid of quite a few financial-related ones about stuff I have now sorted out.

*Did a few surveys. I cancelled my participation in one….there were so many rules to follow & in the end, I couldn't remember them without going back & studying it all carefully again from the beginning. Frankly, less than £3 wasn't going to come close to covering my time on this, so I gave up.

*Dug out my cheese scone recipe - I've a friend coming over for lunch tomorrow so will make sure they are warm out of the oven. I think I will pick some wild garlic to chop into the mixture for a bit of added ooomph as we have some in the garden.

While we are really pleased to be able to sort everything out & have made a start getting it back up into the loft (lots of stuff has been donated or chucked so it's been useful), we are less happy to see that an old problem on the wall of the back bedroom has returned & I suspect that it stems from defects in the old roof, which have in the last year or so, made it worse as our further investigations revealed blown plaster under the wallpaper. We initially thought we could paint over the stain it & cross our fingers, but I have had a better look today & I think that, unwanted though more expense will be, we are going to need a professional fix. I am going to chat to Mr F about it tonight & see how he feels about contacting the builders who did our refurb work between 2020-22 to see if one of them could maybe call by & give us their opinion. Sooooo not happy about the prospect of another bill, but these things do tend to deteriorate if left & we both know the problem is there & it has got worse since we were first aware of it. This area of the wall has had a tall unit standing in front of it, so out of sight, out of mind iyswim. On the good side, if the old roof was the cause, at least that has been replaced.

Right, time to go & give the rascals their afternoon treats - only 2 each, which Soot will think is utterly derisory, then I need to get the laundry in & see if anything actually deigned to dry.

Woke up feeling really stressed today…..my sleep tracker noted a lot of REM so I am assuming I'd had a bizarre dream. I couldn't recall it, but have felt out of sorts all day. Ah well, let's see what Tuesday brings.

F x

PennysIntoPounds

Hope you have a restful evening and a good night's kip, it's ridiculous how much it affects us isn't it. I woke up daft early and not ready to wake this morning and have also been out of sorts all day.

Bah to the wall issue but at least you know and can take action. It's an investment in Project Surbiton!