Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

Makingabobor2

Interesting you mentioned increasing food stores. I thought about it and then wondered if it was just me being silly an worrying about something that may never happen. I read the other day, an article about having plenty of tinned and ready to eat foods in that we can store in pantry and not have to rely on fridge and freezer or having to cook, in case we get power cuts and making sure we have a big supply of batteries and candles, and a wind up or battery radio. It did all seem a bit "doom & gloom", but you just never know.

foxgloves

@makingabobor2 - I have an emergency planning list in my notebook, which includes pantry & freezer supplies plus non-food items. We did carry more stores during the pandemic & I definitely preferred being well-stocked up as there were quite often gaps on the shelves across supermarkets. I would not class myself at all as a 'prepper', but I do think it makes sense to strengthen our resilience in volatile times. And we are very conscious of flooding where we live too.

I don't think resilience is at all 'doom & gloom'. I think it's common sense tbh.

badmemory

I still find gaps in supermarket shelves especially if you shop where the same things are cheaper than the norm. Provided you are careful about expiry dates it only makes sense. I do seem to have a lot of tins of tomatoes expiring in August though.

Makingabobor2

Yes you are probably right. We should be prepared just in case.

Sun_Addict

We used to get a lot of power cuts a few years ago until an underground cable causing the problem was finally replaced. I still keep a good supply of candles and batteries. Mr SA has a wind up radio that is actually pretty good and we have a work light that also charges up phones provided it’s kept fully charged. I always have a decent stock of food as I’ve been caught short a couple of times when I’ve been out of action due to broken legs.

I still have flashbacks to the sheer greed of people stocking up at the start of the pandemic in Mr S 😡

Humdinger1

On the naughty list @foxgloves? They'd surely have to build us one of those ziggurat thingies that you see in Macchu Pichu, and put us on the top, no! Love Humdinger xx

foxgloves

Thanks for all your comments & contributions. Have given it some more thought & will most probably budget for a pantry stock-up at the end of the month.

Useful garden day yesterday. Mr F mowed the lawn, weeded a large raised bed, plus the smaller ones containing our garlic & shallots, then he dug in the green manure crop in the large bed in which it has overwintered. I did some sorting out in the greenhouse & sowed cavolo nero & lots of flower seeds (all free seeds).

Today, we had the best of the day for our city centre trip, as it is pelting down with rain now. Budget-friendly bits as follows:

*Used one of my £5 coffee shop vouchers (survey earnings) to reduce our spend. Very civilised start to the day - tackling the Everyman crossword while waiting for the shops to open.

*Stuck to the 2 items on my list at the shop where one might go for a new body despite being given the tempting info that I only needed to spend another £5 to qualify for 2 free gifts. Pleased to say I stuck to my list as spending extra just to get free gifts was something I did constantly back in the Spendaceous Era & I've learned from it. At the tills, it transpired that I still qualified for a 'lucky dip' & I got a free travel size moisturiser, which will be useful.

*Did not get tempted in the Marine Condiment Shop, mainly because I just cba to take my boots on & off for trying on jeans! Thus temptation avoided by sheer laziness!

*Stuck to my list for general toiletries stock-up at the sounds like shoes shop. Best deal was to find my favourite foundation (on list) on offer at 2 for £15. They are £10-99 each, so a good saving.

*Almost pulled in for petrol at supermarket just outside city centre but decided to take a chance on our cheapest local prices being better when we got home.…& they were. 141.9 at supermarket compared with 139.9 locally (non-supermarket) but we also passed a service station on route charging 149.9 & I think 10p a litre is a big difference for those who need to fill up frequently for commuting, etc.

*Slow-cookered sufficient beef carbonnade yesterday to feed us tonight too, plus a 5th portion frozen for a work lunch at some point.

*And finally....a nice charity shop find! A Portmeirion plate matching our dinner service for £3-99. It was very grubby having clearly been on a wall, but it has washed up perfectly & is a fraction of the cost of a new one.

We were chatting about shrinkflation x inflation on a well-known brand of mini sugar-coated chocolate eggs a while back, were we not? Well today, we went in a shop with a display of said product & every bag was very visibly security-tagged!! It seems that there is a ceiling on what the more criminally-minded are prepared to pay for these tiny over-priced ovoids!

And on that bombshell, I shall leave you to your Sundays.

I need a super-productive week so am going to relax now, to build up my strength 🙂

F x

teapot2

I saw something on TV recently about chocolate being targeted in a big way by shoplifters since the price has gone up so massively. Not just the odd bar but clearing whole shelves, it showed footage of people nicking huge armfuls.

foxgloves

@teapot2 - I suppose if they are clearing entire shelves, there are people making a few quid knocking stolen bars out to friends & acquaintances for half price. Meanwhile the price keeps going up &/or the quality is reduced. Cocoa & coffee I'm sure are now being affected by climate change.

foxgloves

Hello Monday Readers,

I've just wasted half an hour submitting a complaint online only for the website (pet food manufacturer) to get stuck in a loop over me having "omitted my country of residence" (I didn't!) & then not allowing me to access that section again to check. Infuriating as I'd taken time to upload all the relevant photos too. It will have to wait until tomorrow now as I've lost the will to live with it. I shall chat to you instead.

Busy day in which I decided that if I didn't make serious inroads into cleaning this mucky house, I would have to have stern words with myself. Good progress made, would have finished it had the triangular finned vacuum decided it wasn't going to suck as well as usual. Mr F has diagnosed desperate need for filter clean & poss unblocking post-roofing clean-up & will doubtless enjoy taking it to bits. Anyway……onto the budget-friendly stuff:

*Cleaned downstairs using minimal products & washable cloths. Felt quite pleased with myself as Postie brought a genealogy book I ordered from National Archives & the pull of settling down to peruse that was of course greater than my desire for cleaning! Never mind, shall enjoy reading it when I get around to it.

*Changed towels & household linens, decided to lob them in for a wash & have managed to get them pretty much dry for free out on the line.

*Refilled various jars & bottles which were getting low/empty.

*Mixed up a sourdough ready for baking tomorrow morning.

*Defrosted last portion of ratatouille from our summer veg glut, also last pot of home made pesto, as I intend to make these into a cheesy-topped pasta bake for tonight. Still making good use from freezer use-it-ups atm.

*Did my usual Monday morning budget updates. Should theoretically have also done my Mid-Month Budget Check-in today, but it will be less of a faff if I let a couple of transactions clear first, which they almost certainly will have done by tomorrow, so have deferred it. I defo want to do it - it is even more of a 'security blanket' when lots of money transfers have been flying around.

*Received our 1st water bill since being moved to compulsory water metering. There is no mention of increasing our monthly dd payment, though I notice that our account is showing a debit balance of £103. Of course I am unused to this type of water bill as non-metered bills simply appeared once a year saying basically "We want this much" & we used whatever we wanted. At the point of changeover, we were refunded over £400 credit for the April to Dec 2025 period to (I assume) 'zero' our account ready for us to begin on a metered supply. I can see from the figures that we have used fewer cubic meters this quarter than the previous one, so I think that is probably due to us being more aware/mindful of how many ££s are flowing out of the tap. Intend to monitor it over the coming quarter & see if we need to increase our monthly dd.

*Found a pile of old spread tubs in the shed which I have now cut up to make another bundle of free plant labels.

Well, I have a bit more tidying to do, so will crack on with that. Looking forward to trying to answer more questions than Mr F on UC tonight……just watch it all be physics, chemistry, maths, geography of the U.S & flipping flags……..then a bit of time spent on finishing the crossword & a couple of chapters of my book - still on Kate Atkinson 'Transcription' & enjoying it.

Cheers all,

F x