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Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend
Comments
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According to MnS & for once I totally agree. It is about body shape. I will try to describe but it isn't my best function. If you are deeper from front to back than most are these days then if you wear a standard size bra it will never fit properly without adaptations. Hence my need for a smaller size but with extenders. As soon as you use extenders it moves the back of the straps much nearer the edges of your shoulders & encourages them to slide off. I have a thing with what look like suspenders at both ends which is adjustable & keeps the 2 straps from falling off. An accidental find on Amazon when looking for new extenders.
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I find myself wearing sports bras for daily wear more and more often these days, there's not a single 'normal' bra that doesn't seem to have some major annoyance!
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6466032/an-in-between-phase/p1
'aggressive safety shot' Ken Doherty6 -
Hi Sunday Savers,
Thoroughly lazy day here. Garden centre trippette for breakfast (as both our Personal Spends seem to be holding up well this month), to buy a few things from our list & research a couple of others. I was invited to choose a birthday dahlia & a non-plastic garden windmill….both of which were on my birthday wish list but which Mr F felt he needed some input. By lucky hap, all the dahlias were buy one, get one free so I chose a warm autumn copper one & a cafe au lait. I chose an attractive windmill - I mean the ones on a tall metal stake which go into the ground - with bees circling a sunflower (coppery verdigris finish) & then discovered they were also reduced…by £10! What a nice surprise. I have just the spot ready to put it (though yet more bindweed will need to be dug out first - what a terrible year it's looking for THAT scourge atm….I think all the rain has given it a boost.
Bought a couple of grafted cucumbers which I tried for the first time last year. I had always grown cukes from seed myself but in recent years found them increasingly sulky, the extreme temperatures of the last few Springs, I think. Last year, I decided to try grafted ones. I didn't think they were cheap at 2 for £12, but I have to say they did very well for cucumbers so we got our money back & more. Was pleased to see today that they hadn't increased in price. Will get them into a grow bag this week.
It's Mr F's cooking night tonight & he is making a chilli from some of a large pack of bargainaceous turkey mince he found recently. He divvied it up into suitable amounts for freezing for this chilli, a bolognese & a tamale pie, which I think makes really good use of it, especially as we will doubtless have spare portions too.
Anyway, a bit of spending at the garden centre & I have also ordered another 2 bras, having trialled this one & found it comfortable, up to the job & easy to put on. That last bit makes me sound like an ancient crone, but having to do up a bra at the front then twizzle it round the right way can sometimes pull my arthritic finger & thumb joints if they are inflamed (which some of them are at the moment). So I've ordered another black one plus a purple one. I was umming & ahhing about buying 2 more as they will be £60+ including delivery but I am so sick of uncomfortable bras atm & Mr F cinched my decision by informing me that he won't need anything from the Clothes Pot until Autumn. I initially got on well with a (insert well-known chain for underwear) bra which had replaced the traditional underwires with flexible boning on each side. Eventually, these turned themselves around in the casing (which no amount of fiddling about & force seemed to be able to rectify) & on one occasion, one of them dug in so much, it actually drew blood! So no contest, newbies HAD to be ordered on a buy one to try first basis. Different in style from what I would usually wear but they look nice, are very comfortable & are up to the job so I think we will be friends. (From the online establishment which, if you changed a vowel, would be something you might do in the back row at the cinema) Thanks for all the bra-related comments, what a tricky garment the wretched things can be to get right, can't they? I am defo going to add another pretty black lace torture style to the charity bag as I don't think it's a size the Foxgloves boobs are likely to see again anytime soon & it has hardly been worn.
Right, that's been my day. Reading time now, aiming for another episode of Harry Hole, an early night & an extremely productive week ahead. Anyone else feeling like they could do with having one of those? Let's see what we can achieve.
Cheers,
F x
2026's challenges: 1) To rebuild our Emergency Fund to at least £5k.
2) To read 50 books (12/50) 3) The Re-Shrinking of Foxgloves 8.1kg/30kg
Remember....if you have to put it on a credit card, extend your overdraft or take out a loan to buy whatever it is, you probably can't afford it, as that's not your money, it's somebody else's!8 -
P.S - In the garden centre cafe this morning, thought Mr F was going to start hyperventilating….someone on a table near us drank their coffee, then left without so much as touching their beautifully juicy-looking slice of bakewell tart 😱. The cakes there are not cheap - over £4 a slice - & Mr F is particularly fond of bakewell. For a couple of seconds we considered purloining it & carrying it away in a napkin, but then we thought of potential hygiene issues & also that he may just have popped to the loo. Imagine coming back & discovering that a couple of herberts had eaten their own breakfasts then snaffled your cake!
F
2026's challenges: 1) To rebuild our Emergency Fund to at least £5k.
2) To read 50 books (12/50) 3) The Re-Shrinking of Foxgloves 8.1kg/30kg
Remember....if you have to put it on a credit card, extend your overdraft or take out a loan to buy whatever it is, you probably can't afford it, as that's not your money, it's somebody else's!8 -
Now that is the sort of quandary they should be covering in the MSE Moral Dilemma section!
I think Mr F should have gone to check the gents' then if he wasn't there, snaffled it 😂
Glad you got lovely and bargainous birthday garden gifts
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6466032/an-in-between-phase/p1
'aggressive safety shot' Ken Doherty9 -
@PennysIntoPounds - It was certainly funny at the time. We always comment on the prices of their cakes with me invariably saying, "HOW much?? I can bake an entire cake for that, decorate it & still have money left over!" Mr F hasn't yet felt up to shelling out the price of a piece of their bakewell so spotting that almost certainly abandoned wodge affected him deeply, lol.
2026's challenges: 1) To rebuild our Emergency Fund to at least £5k.
2) To read 50 books (12/50) 3) The Re-Shrinking of Foxgloves 8.1kg/30kg
Remember....if you have to put it on a credit card, extend your overdraft or take out a loan to buy whatever it is, you probably can't afford it, as that's not your money, it's somebody else's!7 -
Just a quick check-in to say that today has been a welcome no-spend day & I've had a productive start to the week. Laundry all done & line-dried & a huge sort-out in the greenhouse facilitated getting our 6 'Roma' tomatoes into their bottomless pots in the border. All the potted-up outdoor tomatoes moved to stand on the border too so as to move on from the overnight bubblewrap & free up space elsewhere. Also moved sunflowers into bigger pots to keep them growing until they can go out. Icy cars again this morning, which is why the tender stuff usually needs to wait until the last week of May. Gave a drink of seaweed to all the veg & plant babies after which my back muscles said it was time to stop.
Use-it-up sweep of veg into tonight's couscous & an ancient lemon for squeezing onto a couple of salmon fillets before baking. 2 red peppers lurking in fridge doing nothing so prepped them into strips & froze for a couple of future stir-fries.
Deferred my Monday morning budget updates to tomorrow when I need to stay in for a parcel.
Liaised with roofer about popping over just to make absolutely sure that none of the bedroom wall problem has been caused by the new roof. We think this is highly unlikely as first signs of the problem pre-dates the new roof by at least 4 years, but our builders thought it was worth getting him back to investigate that corner because none of us want the repair to the wall needing to be done a 2nd time. So that was another thing off the list.
Ready for some sofa time now,
F x
2026's challenges: 1) To rebuild our Emergency Fund to at least £5k.
2) To read 50 books (12/50) 3) The Re-Shrinking of Foxgloves 8.1kg/30kg
Remember....if you have to put it on a credit card, extend your overdraft or take out a loan to buy whatever it is, you probably can't afford it, as that's not your money, it's somebody else's!7 -
It's turned rather chilly with an icy wind here too, glad I didn't cast me clout 'fore May was out!
Good idea to get the wall checked while you're all still 'in the zone'
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6466032/an-in-between-phase/p1
'aggressive safety shot' Ken Doherty4 -
So am I reading this correctly? You now have tomatoes in green house & not covering them at night? I'm still such a novice at all this.…mine are still indoors & go out to acclimatisenin the day & back in at night. As this is my 1st year with greenhouse, I was unsure when to move them in there
Making the debt go down and savings go up
LBM 2015 - debt £57K / Now £26,764....its going down
Mortgage Free December 9th 2024! 18mths ahead of schedule.Challenges
EF £630/3000
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Studies/surveys April.....£131.34
Decluttering items 1402/2025. 195/2026
Books read 23 in 2025. 2026- 11 (target is 52)
Jigsaws done 20 in 2025. 3 this year.
My debt free diary...https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6396218/we-will-get-this-debt-d£own-the-savings-up5 -
Yes, that's the situation, @Makingabobor2. I moved all the tomato plants out to our unheated greenhouse on April 1st & they have been covered in bubblewrap every night until yesterday. I haven't been down to the greenhouse yet this morning to see how they have fared but I would expect them to be ok after 3 weeks of acclimatising. I did leave nightime bubblewrap over the peppers (still v small plants), aubergines, cukes & chillies but shall take it off this week unless I see a big frost in the forecast.
My outdoor tomatoes are currently still in pots in the greenhouse but as we move into May, I shall be standing them outside on sunny days ready to plant them out at the end of the month.
F
2026's challenges: 1) To rebuild our Emergency Fund to at least £5k.
2) To read 50 books (12/50) 3) The Re-Shrinking of Foxgloves 8.1kg/30kg
Remember....if you have to put it on a credit card, extend your overdraft or take out a loan to buy whatever it is, you probably can't afford it, as that's not your money, it's somebody else's!6
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