Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

Hello Saturday Savers,
Nice to come on here to update my diary & find I've had so many visitors. Thanks for your contributions, everyone. I do wish I had confidence that energy prices WILL fall from summer. My trust in the industry is not great. Time will tell.
I haven't updated for a while. I've been busy sorting out a few things - I don't intend to bore everyone with the details but my specialist scan (teeth) needs to be done again as there was an error. Infuriating but I don't have to pay as it was not my fault. Anyway, been sorting out the ins & outs of that (assertively). Also have a boundary issue with neighbour for which Mr F & I think we have found an option which would be acceptable to us. Time spent discussing this, thinking about it, etc. Also been worrying about a family member who had an oncology appt this week, having been told that their radiotherapy course had failed. Turns out this is not necessarily the case at all, much more positive news which was really good to hear.
Anyway, has there been any money saving at Foxgloves Manor this past few days? I think these are the small wins on that front:
*Should be within March grocery budget, I think, following Week 4's shop. Won't be doing the maths until Monday morning but am reasonably confident. Didn't get to market butcher quite early enough to secure his offer of 1.8kg 5% beef mince for £10, but did get another good bargain - 8 cumberland sausages, 4 pork steaks & a pork shoulder for £10 instead.
*Found hardback edition of a book I'm waiting to come out in pbk in our charity bookshop for £2.99 - perfect condition.
*Potted up all my tomato babies, now bottle cloched & will be bubble-wrapped at night for a good while yet.
*Finshed knitting a pair of free socks using assorted l/o sock yarn from my stash. Am really pleased with the result, just need to sew in all the ends tonight.
*Have been remembering to check for surveys - PA total for this month over £30 & a few days to go.
*Make-do & mend - Mr F has managed to mend a problem kitchen unit so we will not need to seek a joiner. His methodology is usually to hit whatever it is with a hammer until it succumbs & it's definitely the approach he employed in this instance. It has worked & as he'd emptied the cupboard out before he began clumping it, I went through everything & did a goodly amount of decluttering to bin, recycling & charity bag. There were also some 'treasures' - a decorative bread board I'd forgotten about which I have now hung on the kitchen wall for a bit of a change, a tiny glass bottle which will be perfect for a single bloom for a table setting & a pack of transparent plastic pint beakers which have already been pressed into purpose cloching seedlings.
*Not a no-spend day today. Visited a local (ish) country park for a walk & stayed away from the nice little garden centre but did succumb in the gift shop. Mr F spotted a book on his reading list priced at half the £9.99 cover price so he soon grabbed that (Personal Spends, so budget-neutral) & I bought my sister's main birthday present, which will be funded from the Presents Pot. Her birthday isn't until August, but I do buy things all year round if I happen to see an item which I think is perfect for the recipient.
Well, it's not my cooking night tonight. Mr F is going to be cooking gingered pork steaks with home made jacket wedges, so after I've popped down to the greenhouse to put the plant babies to bed, I shall enjoy an hour or so with my book (probably with some degree of 'cat help').
Hope everyone doing ok.....these still feel like odd times to me, tbh, but as my friend always says, we have to "keep on b*ggering on", don't we?
Peace,
F x

Tescodealqueen

Not been a money saving fortnight here, relative in hospital and car parking for just over 2 hours each day at 4.70 a pop, had to take him out each time to sort his smoking habit or he would have tried to discharge himself and OH treated this  as a coffee break at £9.05 a time. Pleased he is now home and recuperating a bit though we will be taking turns to visit to visit daily to make sure he is managing. Being Ill is certainly not inexpensive. Plus meal planning went a bit haywire too.

marionmgcars

I’ve enjoyed reading everyone’s comments.  I’ve been away from home travelling helping a friend, but squeezed in an unexpected girls weekend away.  Fabulous time, but quite a hit on the bank account.  Always is when not planned and saved for.  Thankfully I have holiday savings fund that can cover most of the expense.  This month seems like a 5 week month, but just realised April will be a 5 week month, so best get the frugal planning in progress.  

Sun_Addict

Annoying about the teeth scan but at least you don’t have to pay again although a nuisance it has to be redone Good news about the boundary issue and even better news about your relative. 

Suffolk_lass

Ooh, plastic pint glass cloches! What a great idea!

foxgloves

@Suffolk_lass - I couldn't think where they came from, but I've remembered now. I bought them to fill with sweeties for reasonably lightweight postable gifts during Lockdown. I gathered them up in cellophane (thus using a roll someone gave me ages ago) & tied the tops with ribbon. With a pretty handmade gift tag, they did look appealing. The best thing was being able to choose the sweets myself with each recipient in mind, rather than buying pre-made.
As cloches, they are a good size for 9cm pots, which are what I use for potting up greenhouse veggie plant seedlings.
F

foxgloves

Hello Diary Readers,
We'd both intended a busy active morning in the garden & were looking forward to it, but our plans were scuppered on opening the bedroom curtains & seeing the rain. It's retreated to showers now, but the ground is oozing under foot & the sky threatening more to come, so our efforts will have to wait until another day. I have been down the garden just twice - once to remove the bubblewrap from seedlings until late pm & again to take a bowl of veggie peelings/scraps to the worm composter.
Very little in the way of cooking required later, as I've already put our dinner in the slow cooker. A recipe I haven't tried before - Cumin beef tagine. The chunks of meat cook with stock, onions, garlic, seasoning & various spices, then for the final hour of cooking time, I need to add red pepper strips, chunked-up butternut squash & raisins. It's certainly smelling inviting, so hope it will be good to eat. Intend to serve it with basmati rice. Serves 4 - 6 so that will be tomorrow's meal sorted out too, & hopefully a bit for the freezer, even if it's just a microwave lunch mug for Mr F. There might well be more, judging by the amount of ingredients still to be added. I intended to use our slow cooker a lot more this winter because of its low cost relative to heating up the gas oven, but my good intentions have been a bit off & on, so I am stepping it up & have been through my 3 slow cooker recipe books bookmarking recipes which will fit well with our healthy eating, budget & personal tastes.
No-spend day today, definitely. I've done a bit of prep for my specialist dental re-scan - paperwork printed out & put in a plastic folder, the dental model I have to wear for the scan put somewhere very visible so I won't get halfway to the city centre & realise I've left it on the dresser & also decided what to wear. That sounds ridiculously overkill, doesn't it? But I am nervous of anything dental-related, so if I am feeling anxious on the day, it will be helpful to have everything planned so as to feel in control.
I'm just going to check for surveys, then I will be off to make some lunch & am looking forward to carrying on reading my current book this afternoon. The sun is slightly trying for this last couple of minutes - that would be good, as it would raise greenhouse temperatures a little ready for a cold night ahead.
Right m'dears, that's the unexciting sum total of my day. Hope someone among our number is up to something exciting!
F x

2Scratters

We picked up a small chest freezer the other day FOC and DH  has been busy cleaning and tidying it up as it had been sited in a garage. This had kept him busy at the weekend whilst I was at work. It is an item that I am hoping will help with the future proofing for us. I will keep a check on the electric use. If it keeps me from having to go shopping too often then it will be earning its keep.  It will be perfect for the items that steal a lot of space i.e loaf of bread, 2ltr bottles of milk. Home baking of cakes and scones. 
There is only the 2 of us and already have a 6ft upright freezer  am I being over cautious here?

2 Scratters xx

Suffolk_lass

I have exactly that conversation with myself over here. I have a 7 foot upright commercial freezer in the pigshed, just for freezing what we grow. It always comes all together. I must seriously question just how much I need to freeze but I also have (eg) hm blackcurrant cordial, jelly and jam, so end up gifting (and receiving more jam!) or freezing. I currently have a 3L jar of cassis developing but honestly?

It is why I processed 40 odd jars of passata last year. (It is a much more efficient way to preserve, BTW). However, I still have enough for this year but I know I will grow more, and need to freeze them, at least as a stepping stone before making more passata - so the freezer stays. Mostly it gets filled with prepped courgettes that we use throughout winter for soup. We both like courgette soup (just as well) and at this point I have just one bag left, so I do use it.

I also have a meat and bought stuff chest freezer (bread, pie, pizza, ice cream for instance) in the garage, small fridge freezer for drinks and leftover meals in the toolshed, a fridge-freezer in the kitchen and a bee freezer in the workshop (it is a 6 foot upright that is useless in summer) for freezing frames to stop wax moth decimating the wax. This last one is switched off once done and just used to store frames. I have two packs of dried skimmed milk in case, rather than freezing milk because we have full fat (org) blue top delivered

I seriously need to consider the running costs before my long-running energy fix ends at the end of August.

foxgloves

I think I have freezer-envy! We have just an under-counter standard size one with 3 deep drawers plus a small one above our fridge. And that's it, despite us growing quite a bit of fruit & veg.
F x