We’d like to remind Forumites to please avoid political debate on the Forum.
This is to keep it a safe and useful space for MoneySaving discussions. Threads that are – or become – political in nature may be removed in line with the Forum’s rules. Thank you for your understanding.
Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend
Comments
-
Yes, I don't ever use credit since our LBM. Still paying the debts from the old days. I use the card & pay it off the next day.
Making the debt go down and savings go up
LBM 2015 - debt £57K / Now £25,854....its going down
Mortgage Free December 9th 2024! 18mths ahead of schedule.Challenges
EF £130/3000
Studies/surveys September £31.30
Decluttering items 1400/2025. 410/2026
Books read 23 in 2025. 2026- 17 (target is 52)
Jigsaws done 20 in 2025. 5 in 2026
My debt free diary...https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6396218/we-will-get-this-debt-d£own-the-savings-up5 -
JL credit card loyalty points are awarded at 5 points for every £4 spent at JL & Waitbl00m & 1 point for every £10 spent elsewhere. As pretty much all our spending (except for our monthly Personal Spends, of course) is planned, we use my JL card for most food shopping, all JL purchases inc. presents, tech, appliances & some home stuff & Mr F's M&S card for petrol, holidays & most other stuff. I get ridiculously excited about vouchers in a way that I didn't when I briefly tried a cashback site so this works for us. I do look out for double points promotions as if we are planning to buy something & we can wait a couple of weeks, it all adds to the voucher stash.
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 -
Hello Wednesday Pence Wranglers,
A pleasant day of pottering around doing tasks at a leisurely pace. Mr F's day off so he has kept me supplied with coffee & it was nicely relaxing finishing Saturday's crossword over lunch. A fiendish setter so we were pleased we managed it tbh. Anyway, a small amount of budget-friendly doings:
*Wrote grocery shopping list 1st thing as Weds is shopping day. We are noticing that small picks of our own produce are having a positive effect now. Lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, courgettes, chillies, shallots, garlic & spring onions all being supplied from home. Rhubarb also still going strong considering the heat. Anyway, Week 4's grocery shopping came in under target spend, we had £2.50 off as the current 'Little Treat' & also found some perfect yellow stickered red grapes. Large bags of own label coffee beans still on offer so we stocked up with a bag.
*Still working through laundering large items to make the most of the very speedy free drying weather. Today was the turn of the bathroom curtains & bonus was that they had such a good blow out on the whirlygig, they didn't require ironing. Always a win for me!
*Mr F watered & fed all the veg. I need to do some greenhouse maintenance so maybe tomorrow morning when it's cool.
*Made use of Mr F's gibbon arms to hold some fabric up to the curtain pole so I could mark the required length of my new door curtain. The visible side is a bee print I bought a couple of months ago. The back, which won't be visible unless we are in the conservatory in Winter, will be a 'shopped from home' composite fabric made from patchworking together oblongs of furnishing fabric (from my stash plus some of the bee design) to use as a lining & to make the curtain heavier. I have cut out as many oblongs in 3 different sizes as possible (I saw something similar online) & will commence joining them together. I was also able to shop curtain tape from home so must have overbought last time as haven't made any curtains since the pandemic. I did look at the price of buying curtain lining but decided to go for a more faffy, but hopefully more creative option & also free.
*Wrote a task list for tomorrow - put 'Mid-Month Budget Check-In' at the top as I haven't done it yet.
*Easy cheapo meal tonight as it's jacket potato night. Cheese & coleslaw for me &.....heaven forfend, he fancied a change from Epic Man Stew 😱 & is apparently having cheese & baked beans! That wouldn't do for me. I do like baked beans but only on toast.
Right, we are halfway through the week which means I have a couple more potentially productive days. Let's up & at 'em!
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 -
Bravo on finishing the fiendish setter's crossword
And all the other stuff obvs but cryptic crossword always takes priority in lists of achievements to my mind! 😁
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6466032/an-in-between-phase/p1
'aggressive safety shot' Ken Doherty6 -
I love the sound of the patchwork lining! Great idea, interesting to look at and thrifty. I also try to find ways of using up leftover fabric as much as I can. When sewing there are inevitably offcuts. If jersey, I make knickers. Woven fabric might end up as napkins, table mats or gift bags. Because I am short, I often don’t need as much fabric as a pattern suggests. I want to try always laying out the pattern pieces before buying my fabric in future. With some patterns that I use regularly, I have cut down by a quarter of a metre. I often squeeze something out of a remnant that is, in theory, not nearly enough for the pattern. With you on the baked beans pairing!
6 -
@PennysIntoPounds - Thanks! It is quite satisfying considering we only started tackling cryptics a couple of years ago. It has brought to light how much more science Mr F knows than me (except for health & botany) & he is amazed how many archaic & arcane words I know. It's quite funny sometimes when he says. 'Have you EVER in your ENTIRE LIFE heard that word before?' And I say 'Yes!'. Am reliant on him for maths, physics & geeky TV/sci-fi though, as well as his excellent skill at reverse-parsing an answer, so when I think I can't possibly be correct, he can often quickly see why it is the answer. Hopefully it's doing the grey cells some good anyway x
@Moorviews - That's very resourceful making knickers from jersey offcuts! I know what you mean about buying too much fabric. I am only a tiny tad over 5' 3" so I never need the full length of a pattern either. Added to this, because I only resumed (very) basic dressmaking last year, I am still buying more fabric than cited in the pattern because my lack of sewing confidence means I feel I need extra in case of error.
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 -
Hello Money Savers,
A quick one from me today as still a few things I want to get done. Useful day so far. Budget-friendly stuff as follows:
*Reconciled my credit card statement which landed last night. No nasty surprises. The only outstanding item on it was one I intended to pay off this afternoon anyway, so job done.
*Did my regular mid-month budget check-in. Well, after I think 3 months of having about £40 more than I was expecting, I've gone the other way this month, but am only £11 missing. Had a quick look for any obvious error, but couldn't find anything. I think the most likely explanation is that I've paid for an item & not remembered to transfer the cost from the relevant Savings Pot. Delving into any more detail felt like more than £11's worth of my time so I've just updated my Money Book & as my dad was fond of saying, I'm sure it'll "all come out in the wash".
*Bailed out the bath for 8 watering cans for the most thirsty-looking plants & I have been resourceful in using the rest of it for 'free' bucket flushes. Well, not 'free' in that we have paid for the water, but we have already used it for Purpose 1 (bathing) so I am considering Purpose 2 to be free because I am not paying for extra water to come through Mr Meter.
*Today's garden pickings: Lettuce, spring onions.
*Triaged the tomatoes as numbers are building in the fridge drawer. Put 500g aside for using instead of tinned (such a lovely mellow flavour from using skinned & chopped fresh ones), some will go in tonight's salad & I think I will be starting on the 'Get ready for Autumn' batch-cooks of soup, sauces, etc, very soon.
*Made tomorrow's packed lunch & breakfast. Mr F is working somewhere more remote tomorrow & is adamant he's taking a big flask of coffee with him, rather than calling in to buy some on his drive over.
*Baked a batch of bread rolls.
*Dinner is in the slow cooker - Smoky chipotle black bean chilli, which we will eat with wraps, grated cheese & salad. Depending on how hungry the caveman is, we will have either 1 or 2 portions left for the freezer.
I did hope to start joining the curtain patchwork pieces this afternoon but my laptop has been &%$**! about & I had to ping Mr F for a fix before I could progress. I'd tried everything I could think of. I expect it's an update that's affected some of my settings. All working normally now.
Time to go & administer cat treats, though Ash hasn't even come in for his lunch yet. His summer M.O is to troll in for his lunch at 5pm then not want all his pouch because, as my Nana would have said, he's 'spoiled his dinner'. Hope everyone's having a nicely productive day,
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!9 -
Morning Campers, Rise & Shine!
Well, my low-tech, no-spend solution to our bedroom window blowing wide open (loop of elastic!) worked overnight & it was good both to get more air in & not to have to buy a gizmo for this which would have involved drilling into a plastic window frame.
I am going to pop out to water rhe veg shortly, then vacuum downstairs before it gets too hot. After breakfast, I intend to clean the bathroom, make some bread dough, hardboil some eggs for making a picnic breakfast tomorrow & roast some veg for tonight's couscous. Mopping the kitchen floor if no cats around to walk all over it would also be good.
That should leave plenty of time later for doing any available surveys, shower & hairwash, sewing & reading, so let's see how that goes. Mr F is at a more remote workplace today so has taken in water, a big flask of coffee, fruit & plenty of sarnies from home so it's looking like a no-spend day for both of us.
Right, on with the sandals & off to water the vwg I go.
Have a great Friday, all.
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!9 -
Have a happy productive Friday.
I get knocked down but I get up again (Chumbawamba, Tubthumping) -.literally have been run over by a bike, mobility scooter and a car - still here 💪4 -
Thanks!
Productive day. Sewing dropped off the list as I started to suspect it might, but once I got my backside into gear with the cleaning, I found myself motivated to do a bit more while I was in the mood. I've also been putting lots of random things away & I think the place looks a lot better for it. Roast veg couscous made so only need to pick a bit of salad & poach some salmon & that's me done for the day. Haven't seen Ash since breakfast. He's such a dirty stop-out during summer. Soot enjoyed kitchen cleaning as when I move their big stripy food tray for mopping the floor, there are often a couple of stray cat biscuits underneath & today there were five! Needless to say, he considered that a result!
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!10
Confirm your email address to Create Threads and Reply
Categories
- All Categories
- 355.4K Banking & Borrowing
- 254.8K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
- 456K Spending & Discounts
- 248.1K Work, Benefits & Business
- 605.4K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
- 178.9K Life & Family
- 263.2K Travel & Transport
- 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
- 16.1K Discuss & Feedback
- 37.7K Read-Only Boards