Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

rtandon27

I'm not a big fan of autumn as dread the shorter days and less light, but I do love pumpkin spice everything as well as mulled cinnamon apple drinks. My favorite time of year is high summer with long days and short nights! May/Jun/Jul are the months I feel alive 😁

Sun_Addict

Although summer is by far my favourite time of year I try to embrace the different seasons and find enjoyment in them. I quite like the new term vibe of September.

foxgloves

Oh wouldn't you just KNOW IT that I finally sit down to chat to you all & Ash chooses the same exact minute to appear demanding his lunch…..for which he failed to turn up at lunchtime. He'll have to wait now, despite the fact that he is giving me the major sad-eye.

@Wanna_Bee_Free - That's interesting about bendy stairs costing more for stair-lifts, though I have to say that if we manage to move roughly when we have planned, I'll still only just be state pension age & Mr F 4 or 5 years short of his, but it is worth thinking about for possible future needs. My parents had 2 stair lifts at home - one fitted when my Nan moved in with them & a new one decades later when my Dad's terminal illness meant he could no longer manage the stairs. The fitting was very straightforward & I bet that was because it was one straight, not very steep flight of stairs.

@Dakota_Rose & @scandimore - Autumn has always been my favourite season, even as a small child. Everything from the colours in nature to lighting the stove, cooking warming meals in the Crockpot, thinking about Christmas, crisp frosty walks….though admittedly there are a lot fewer of those now climate change is bringing rain instead. While I think there is something lovely in all seasons, Summer for me is a means to the arrival of Autumn. It has an aura of new beginnings too - back to school, then Uni, 1st job, uni again, 1st professional job, promotion, 1st date with Mr F, betrothal, our wedding, buying a house together….all Autumn new beginnings.

@KajiKita - Embrace it! It's where the witchy magic happens!

@Suffolk_lass - Thanks for the explanation. I had meant to get back to @Humdinger1 with a definition but it went out of my head! I always try to get off our quite low sofa using my own momentum rather than pushing myself up on the arms. I listened to a R4 programme a few years ago which involved a discussion on the importance of continued movement, etc, & something that stuck in my mind was an expert saying that being able to get up from a seated position in your 50s without using your arms is the difference between being able to get on & off the loo aged 90 or needing a carer to assist you. Have done the 'no hands' sofa rise ever since!

foxgloves

Hello Diary Readers,

Happy to report that the Doingstuffitis did kick in, especially after my muesli & 2nd coffee & I've had quite a productive day. Budget-friendly aspects as follows:

*Did 3 loads of laundry as today looked drier in the forecast than later days this week & the good breeze has meant everything drying quickly & well.

*Collected some cosmos seed heads for free plants next year.

*Baked a batch of bread rolls.

*Divvied up yesterday's roast chicken - enough for chicken salad with home made Cajun wedges tonight, stir-fry tomorrow & the Man-Stew which is apparently planned for Wednesday which is this week's jacket potato night. Carcass frozen for stock-making when I have another one to put with it.

*Sorted out the basket of veg I harvested yesterday. Now in fridge or freezer as appropriate.

*Today's garden pickings: 2kg pears, a massive carrot.

*Prepped, cooked & bottled 4 jars of blackberries & pears.

*Fed sourdough jar.

*Fed a nice big colander of scraps to the worm composter.

*Did 3 surveys.

*Made tomorrow's packed lunch.

*Did a little bit of knitting for the presents bag.

*Winkled out the last of a bottle of foundation with a coffee stirrer purloined from last coffee shop visit.

I decided to leave my usual Monday morning budget updates until tomorrow morning so as to concentrate on other stuff & move it closer to Big Budget Day which is Thursday as I like everything on the £££ front to be absolutely shipshape ready for that. No earthly point in putting in all the effort if one's starting figures were iffy to begin with.

Not an exciting day by any means, but you are all following entirely the wrong diary if you want thrills & spills! It's felt nicely satisfying to crack on with some kitchen witchery & I've enjoyed listening to an audiobook of one of Mick Herron's 'Slough House' novels while chopping, kneading, sorting & JUST OCCASIONALLY getting a turn to sit on the new chair, which yes, as I am sure you all could have anticipated has very swiftly been taken over by cats 🙄.

I'm feeling well up for Tuesday being another day of productivity. Mr F has a few days off from Wednesday & is raring to go on both garden & house jobs so that should all move us forward too.

F x

Humdinger1

Thanks for explanations re bungalow knees! Makes sense. You are your cats' faithful retainers...naturally, the new chair is for them. Onwards and upwards love Humdinger xx

EssexHebridean

Oh is that book where the Slow Horses TV series came from? We loved that - one of the few things we would happily consider paying for a month of fruit-based TV to watch when a new series comes out!

foxgloves

@EssexHebridean - Yes, that's right. Usually I am a stickler for reading the book before I watch a televised or film version but with the Slough House series, I have only managed half & half. We are quite stingy (or do I mean 'sensible'?) with subscriptions. We don't have any atm as we are usually busier out in the garden this time of year. We will re-subscribe to the fruit-based provider for a couple of months this Autumn to watch the new series & anything else of interest, then that will be cancelled & another one selected for a few months. Did you enjoy the other series based on Mick Herron's novels - the Zoe Boehm series, which starred Emma Thompson & Ruth Wilson. I enjoyed all 4 books but having read those before the TV show, I had to make sure my mouth remained zipped up so as not to ruin it for Mr F with any spoilers…..though I do think that TV & film trailers give away quite enough of the tense bits of plot themselves, without any help from gobby wives!

EssexHebridean

Down Cemetery Road? Watched it and yes, enjoyed it, but neither of us were as caught up in that as we were Slow Horses. I'd not realised that was based on the same person's writing either - although thinking about it, the humour the characters were written with should have given the game away! I'll have to keep my eyes out for the books in the charity shops.

foxgloves

Hello Tuesday Readers,

I feel as though I am having a productive day & still have time to do a couple more minor garden tasks this afternoon. Budget-friendliness so far today has included the following:

* Mixed up a sourdough, now proving in its little basket.

*Labelled the blackberry & pear compote I bottled yesterday & added it to the growing stash of tasty jars in our pantry.

*Sorted yesterday's big laundry effort & did minimal ironing before I could go off the idea.

*Did yesterday's belated Monday budget updates - not too much to do, mostly updating our Personal Spends & paying a few transactions off credit cards.

*Finally got around to putting away the toiletries I bought for my stash on Saturday. There was an item I'd forgotten about - a free full-sized body moisturiser which I got for a minimum spend. By lucky hap, the minimum spend required was exactly to the penny the cost of the 2 items from my shopping list which I had gone in to buy so none of the usual temptation to choose another non-list item to push one's total spend over the line. On the subject of freebies, I was in another shop buying another few things from my list & there was an offer (for which I qualified) for either a free lip gloss or lip butter. Mr F couldn't believe that I didn't want them & left without a full-sized freebie. They are simply products I don't use, couldn't think of anyone else who would use them, so as I explained, they would just become a piece of clutter which I either have to go out of my way to remember to use for the sake of it or end up throwing it away. When the '3 for 2' offer returns, now you're talking….I shall be on that straight away!

*Did 3 surveys. I have surpassed my monthly target of £40 on PA & still a few days to go till end of August cash-out so I shall keep checking. Although we are not on holiday until well into Autumn, I think it would be nice to build up my Personal Spends in case I see anything lovely which wants to come home with me.

*Potted on & cloched Spring cabbage babies. Was going to sow a few more, but as I haven't grown overwintered cabbages before, I decided to stick to what I've already got & run this year as an experiment.

*Today's garden pickings: Carrots, blackberries, Guatemalan blue squash. The latter have been well & truly defeated by the extreme & persistent heat & dryness this year. They have managed 1 fruit per plant but much smaller than usual. We have been boosting their feeding recently to see if they have any interest in having a last hurrah but no, they are done so I have chopped up the plants for the compost. The soil in that bed didn't get its usual big mulch of compost this year as we used so much last year filling 3 new raised beds so that's another thing we will be improving for next season. The heat has even meant less comfrey than usual, so much less 'chop & drop' too.

*Perused latest bill from the Cephalopods. All figures slightly higher than the previous 4 months, which I'm putting down to use of fans (both Mr F & I wilt in anything over 25 degrees plus our bedroom is the hottest room in the house barring of course the conservatory) & also rising energy prices. We will be going into Winter with a little less credit on our account than last year but the main driver on this is that our DD was reduced by over £18 a month. Am monitoring it as usual.

Right, well that's my tasks for today, apart from cooking dinner, which is simplicity itself - chicken stir-fry using some of the l/o roast chicken plus plenty of homegrown veg - & a couple more quick garden jobs (30 mins max). I have been jotting down a few ideas for next week's meal plans but as Mr F is off for some of it, we may as well do that together later, plus the grocery shopping list. We have run low on cat pouches so they are having to put a peg on their noses to try & gag down duck flavour which they generally spurn & any duck pouches get chucked back in the cupboard to be offered to hungry hedgehogs. I am made of sterner stuff than Mr F where cats are concerned & didn't realise duck fussiness was being indulged 🙄.

Looking forward to 'Sewing Bee' tonight & to Mr F's time off work.

Cheers, F x

foxgloves

@EssexHebridean - Yes, that's right. 'Down Cemetery Road' is the first one in that series of books. There are just four of them. Herron wrote them before the Slough House books. I wonder if writing the Zoe Boehm series sparked his interest in writing a longer series about the secret service/spies/agents, etc. I noticed a little crossover recently. In one of the Slough House novels, a name is mentioned, just in passing, who is a key 'government' character in 'Down Cemetery Rd'.

I also enjoyed a stand-alone novel by Mick Herron - I think it was called 'The Secret hours'. While it IS a stand-alone, you defo recognise some of the Slough House characters in their younger years while undercover in Berlin, I think shortly after the Wall came down. It provides a bit of back-story for a couple of characters & I thought it was a good story in its own right too. So if you haven't read that one, another good one to look out for, perhaps. It was just as acerbically witty & exciting as the regular Slough House series.

F