Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

Baileys_Babe

@foxgloves thanks for sharing the Indonesian tofu rice recipe, perfect timing as we have decided to reintroduce tofu into our meal planning, no idea when we stopped buying/cooking with it but it might be as much as 2 decades ago 😱

moginstein

@foxgloves Thanks for the recipe. Aldi have changed their range of tofu and stopped doing the sweet chilli one, so that's a nice addition for the firm tofu, as I've just been getting the smoked one.

Maybe one day we'll even have leftovers to try it cold (there are only 2 of us, but we do seem to love to tuck into a deep bowl of stirfry stuff!

Cheery_Daff

I've got two pics of firm tofu in the fridge so I might give it a try today, thank you!

foxgloves

Morning Sunday Savers,

Hope those planning to try it enjoy the tofu recipe. We certainly both really like it & it made a lovely cold salad box lunch for me with half a sliced avocado on top.

Not a lot to report today as we both thought we would have a day of relative leisure. The sky is currently building into a seethe of black so I think we can expect some showers too. That won't please Soot who has wasted the best part of today's weather rolling around on our bed instead of getting himself up & about. Anyway, I have kept/will be keeping the MSE faith with the following bits & bobs:

*Checked all yesterday's new plantings & all are looking fine.

*Bathwater will be used for any watering tonight as well as a few free bucket flushes. I loathe the privatised water industry with a passion so every single beakerful I re-use, I now see as a 2-fingered salute in their direction, though in a way, I am helping them too, as all of us using water responsibly will be helping to offset all the millions which have gone into shareholder bank accounts rather than developing necessary infrastructure like new reservoirs, etc. But from the perspective of bills paid by Foxgloves Manor, I embrace any & all savings we can realistically make.

*Treated ourselves to breakfast at our village farm shop cafe - this is budget-neutral as is paid from our Personal Spends.

*Resisted some very eye-catching pasta bowls in the farm shop. Good price but no plans to buy additional crocks atm. I love nice crockery but if I went through my cupboards, I'm sure I could find enough to bring out for a change of look. Pasta bowls, tbf, we are short of as broke 2 of my 4 when we first got our china-smashing belfast sink. Anyway, didn't succumb to temptation.

*Made use of a 20% off, £1 postage offer to order in some nice tights. 4 pairs for autumn/winter & 2 extra pairs of footless to go under summer dresses. Glad I remembered the offer was on as sometimes I don't & I think this particular one expires tonight. Shame that offer wasn't on a couple of months ago when I ordered 3 of their bras, grr!

*Will be doing June's master meal plan with Mr F over lunch today. We have plenty of food in stock so I am determined that we will have a much lower grocery spend in Weeks 2 & 3. We rather front-loaded things in Week 1 as took advantage of a couple of cat food offers plus another big bottle of the EV olive oil we like as we only buy this when it is on offer. It was 1/3 off last week.

*Garden pickings will be some rhubarb as am intending to bake some muffins this afternoon (for a gift, not for us to be troughing our faces with!) Also a bit of rocket/lettuce.

*Very low-effort nosebag tonight as we intend having some of yesterday's leftover pulled pork with homemade jacket wedges, salad & leftover olives.

Apart from the above, I shall be reading, knitting, finishing the Observer crossword & meandering in the garden (but the latter will no involve doing any jobs today)/

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, m'dears,

F x

foxgloves

Well, here we all are in a new week & I am very much hoping for a positive productive one. Today has been a normal Monday for me - getting us set up for a decent week ahead. Budget-friendly bits as follows:

*Checked all the veg plants as usual. Got to look after those future food supplies. Second sowing of french beans (to make up the numbers because I suspected not all the 1st sowing - old seed - would germinate) now popping up in the greenhouse. The successful plants from the initial sowing have now got their big bean pants on & are outside in the wheelbarrow hardening off.

*Baked a granary loaf, also dough for tonight's pizza & a batch of rolls.

*Last of the pulled pork I slow-cooked on Saturday will be used to top the pizza along with peppers, sweetcorn, onions, etc.

*Garden pickings will be lettuce & coriander.

*Made tomorrow's packed lunch & breakfast.

*2 x loads of laundry done & pegged out. All nicely dry before the showers started. I knew the rain had arrived as Soot shot in like a black furry blur.

*Watered front courtyard 1st thing using saved grey water. Baskets & tubs filling out nicely.

*Did my usual Monday morning budget updates - transferred a bit of money, nothing major. Added our May P/A earnings to our Personal Spends - £56-13 for me & £42-93 for Mr F.

*Did a couple of surveys but not much on offer today when I looked & I don't sign in multiple times to check throughout the day so if there's nothing around during my 'laptop time' then that's my hard bun!

*Vacuumed downstairs & did a minor bit of cleaning - usual minimal products & washable cloths.

In other non-budgetary news, I was talking last night about needing to get my steps up to a reliably EVERYday non-sedentary amount again & Mr F challenged me into a June steps contest. I agreed to this & it started today. I am just a little ahead atm, but I can see he hasn't synched his tracker for a couple of hours so he could be doing all sorts of circuits, stairs & stepping at work. Hmmm, he will be sitting in the car on his commute home though, so I think I will sneak a good few perambulations of the garden in then. I do still have quite a bit of tidying up to do & it always surprises me just how much just generally being busy can add to one's steps. I need to think strategy. I already have a bit of a plan for tomorrow. Right, nothing else to impart, so will get moving on that tidy-up & see how many steps I can get added on before dinner in a few hours time.

Wishing everyone a productive week.

F x

Cheery_Daff

Love a bit of healthy competition! 😊 Need to get into a steps challenge of my own - need to charge my watch first though!

I made a variation on your indonesian tofu recipe the other day, it was very tasty! 😊

PennysIntoPounds

Fab PA earnings.

It's amazing how many steps can be done just by remembering to keep stepping whilst doing things like hanging up the laundry, and with all your garden work you'll do brilliantly 🥂

Sun_Addict

I bet Mr F is on his umpteenth lap of the office as you type 😆

I really should use my laptop to do surveys as there seem to be more available that way. I only do them on my iPad.

foxgloves

Hello Diary Friends,

It's all been pottering along fine here, but nothing exciting. Thought I'd bung a post on today to show I am keeping the MSE faith. I am just fractionally ahead of Mr F on our June Steps Challenge, but there's only about 200 steps in it. The main goal for me is to resume my minimum daily step-count so as to avoid being sedentary. I was doing brilliantly with that until I got Covid last Autumn & even as the life-long exercise-dodger that I am, it surprised me just how quickly I lost the habit of pushing myself for those few extra steps. Right, has there been any budget-friendly activity today? Well, a little bit…

*Baked bread for the weekend.

*Crumbled some bunches of dried herbs into their jars. All from garden & tied for drying.

*Watered the beans & strawberries.

*Did a bit more tying in of veg, plus the sunflowers as it has been quite windy here.

*Entered a competition.

*Did some budget updates plus some general admin.

*Pinged £5 to our EF - this was a survey voucher which I rinsed through the grocery budget.

*Knitted the ribbing on my 2nd sock.

*Did a 15-min Fabulous 50 online workout. Aren't squats just perfectly horrid? There weren't many but I can tell I've done them. Also discovered in a short balance exercise that I can balance on my right leg but not my left, even though I was a little chemically-assisted with tablets as my occasional vertigo has just been trying to get itself established the last couple of days. Anyway, a free little workout, as was my extra amount of steps trotting down to post my sister's letter.

*We have been resurrecting old recipes recently which we used to make but have kind of dropped off the meal plans for no reason we can think of. I made lentil & mushroom gratin last night, which I used to make regularly when Mr F & I first got together (he didn't eat meat or fish back then), he made a Quorn curry recipe we both used to like but had forgotten about & tonight I am doing Madhur Jaffrey's salmon madras.

I'm just racking my brains to think if there's anything else since the last time I posted……..

Oh yes, we had £25 from ERNIE! As Mr F said, "£100K would have been useful, but anything is very welcome!" And if Agent Millions had come knocking, I think we'd now be seriously considering the converted windmill we like in Suffolk which is well out of our price range! Dreaming is all part of the PB experience, I think. Right, judging by the Beloved's steps (which I can see), I think he must also be sitting at a desk, so I am going to do a few more pottering around jobs & maybe a few laps of the garden too. Will also keep an eye on things tomorrow….we have the builders coming, but if Mr F suddenly announces he needs to pick something up in town, I'll know he is planning to park on supermarket carpark on the outskirts & walk in. Hmmm. Yep, defo off to get a few more steps under my belt this afternoon.

Cheers,

F x

KajiKita

Good to ‘see’ you 😊

Squats are … yes horrid, but also annoyingly useful! Well done for doing some 👏

Please share the lentil and mushroom gratin if you wouldn’t mind, that sounds right up my lane 😊

Sending felicitations to the Fabulous Felines 😊

KK