Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

I am badly arachnophobic, @Suffolk_lass, so I have to absent myself from the room while Mr F deals with monstrous seasonal eight-legs. I'm fine with rodent-based jobs though, which is just as well!

foxgloves

Luckily, Soot's loud verbals were not to show off his rodent-hunting prowess. I think he had just come in through the cat flap & felt that insufficient red carpet was being rolled out to celebrate his arrival.

I'm sitting in the conservatory chatting to you. It's still warm enough to have the doors open onto the courtyard, which is pleasant but I think there are about as many leaves blowing in as there is fresh air!

Useful morning. Did my regular mid-month budget check-in, which took longer than usual as there were a lot of bits of financial admin, Pot transfers, etc, to sort out first. I had my eyes tested yesterday & my prescription had changed sufficiently to require new glasses. It was the 2 for 1 chain & I chose a nice black Vivienne Westwood pair & a lighter prettier pair for Summer. Although I very much liked my local indie optician, I couldn't help but note that I got 2 pairs for less than I was paying there for 1 single pair of varifocals several years ago. I collect them in a week or so & will be interested to see how I get on with them. I am hoping that they make a big difference to reading the music when piano playing. The Optician/Dentist Pot covered this & there is sufficient left in there for Mr F to have the new glasses I am convinced he needs. Then it will need a succession of steady top-ups while we hope we don't have a run of crowns falling off, fillings leaping out, etc, etc. We money savers know a thing or two about sod's law!

September's grocery budget is lower than I'd like. I have been including a few 'pantry resilience' items plus a few Christmas cake ingredients as they have less effect on the budget bought gradually. We also bought another 2 large bottles of the olive oil we like because it was on offer & at a price too good to miss, so I think I should really have used funds from the grocery underspend pot to cover those. My Personal Spends look low but new budget cycle starts on 26th of this month & I did convert some of it to cash which is still in my purse, so even with our planned city centre trip this coming weekend, I can't see that I will have a problem. I do have some money in my Personal Spends Reserve, but would prefer not to use it for general things. My mid-month check-in figures came out lower than I was expecting & I think this is because I accounted for Mr F's 6-monthly subscription to come out of our account in August. It didn't. It hasn't come out this month either, even though he's still getting mags so I caused a discrepancy by counting it as a 'still to be paid' bill when it wasn't part of September's regular bills figure because it is usually collected in August. I don't know why I think you need this micro-detail, I'm sure!

Other stuff…..shall be making pastry later for a caramelised shallot quiche. If there is any leftover, I will either freeze it for a future quiche or make a little lattice jam tart, but it won't be wasted. Garden pickings today will be carrots. I've done a couple of minor surveys & will keep an eye on those in case anything decent pops up.

New stereo arrived yesterday. Oh,actually, I don't think I mentioned all the discussions that have been going on about that - very different from the old 'stick it on credit' approach. I'll share that in a separate post, then I must crack on with a few more things.

F

foxgloves

Right, so this stereo has been a topic of conversation all month. It's our Silver Wedding Anniversary later this year & we initially intended to buy each other a gift. I had seen a silver bangle I liked, but Mr F wasn't really interested in anything similar - jewellery, commemorative keepsake, etc, & I didn't feel happy about receiving an expensive bangle myself while he had nothing (though he didn't appear too bothered about this). Then he said he could maybe just have some money to buy some or other small techy gizmo & that kind of made us start thinking our options properly, as 'some money' kind of didn't feel very celebratory. We decided it would perhaps be a better idea to buy ourselves a joint gift rather than try & 'think of things for the sake of it'.

While this is going on, Mr F is still sorting out the spare room following the wall & ceiling repairs & this has involved significant levels of decluttering. His old stereo had stopped working so he had come up with a way of cabling various stuff together, resurrecting some old speakers & being able to play music. He priced up the cables, etc, he'd need to buy & checked it'd be alright to go ahead from the Tech Pot. Then I started thinking…..it had always been our intention to buy a nice new stereo when Mr F retires so we were going to wait until we'd moved to wherever we end up. Rather than spend money on bits & bobs to cobble together a sound system from his tech graveyard, why not buy ourselves a new stereo now as our Silver Wedding Anniversary present? I very much liked the idea. He liked it too, but was very cautious about spending the money. Back in the day, that is the sort of purchase that would've gone onto a credit card quicker than Soot skidding into the kitchen when he hears a cat biscuit hit the tiles! He felt I should also have a bangle. I said that this is not going to happen unless I decide to buy one for myself from my own money…..I have applied to take my work pension this year, so theoretically I could have the bangle as a special treat from that. Then he said 'But we weren't intending to buy a new stereo until we move'. True, I said, but we didn't know our old 2nd-hand one was going to go bung in advance of that & he would have to spend money on cables & wot-nots to make a sound system from all these old bits & pieces, so why not just cut our losses & put that money towards a lovely new one instead. So we chose one & by lucky hap it was available from the store from which I was sitting on a stash of £155 in vouchers (from credit card loyalty points) & those reduced the price significantly. Yesterday, we collected it & spent a pleasant afternoon testing out favourite pieces of music & songs. It has a lovely sound & we will both get a lot of pleasure from it here before it comes with us when we move in a few years time.

Now the additional positive effect of this for me is that there are now quite a lot of redundant techy gizmos, speakers, etc, knocking about which (Oh joy!!) he has finally declared to be CLUTTER!!! He intends to try selling a couple of them which could potentially feed some funds back into the Tech Replacement Pot. Anything else will apparently be going on a little one-way trippette to the tip!

And this WILL be the stereo which comes with us to our new home when we do eventually move because I made sure we chose something which will look good downstairs when we finally have a big enough living room to make that happen. I'm glad we were able to sort this out from vouchers & Savings Pot money, rather than throw good money after bad buying gizmos to enable a miscellany of bits of old tech to limp on. It's felt like a positive decision & unlike the bad old days, has not involved any form of borrowing. Credit as an answer to everything just isn't a feature of any of our purchasing decisions these days.

And on the day of our anniversary, which is a few weeks off as yet, I will cook us a lovely meal, we'll have a bottle of cava, we will exchange cards, & ages ago, we also made sure to book our holiday fairly close to that time, as we thought it would feel like part of the celebrations. That has already been paid for by saving into our Holiday Pot, so just a week's food to think about, a lot of which we will take with us from home.

I've just noticed how gloriously red the berries on our whitebeam tree are atm. The birds are loving them.

F x

Makingabobor2

That's lovely to get yourselves a joint present that is actually something you need & that will last for many years.

PennysIntoPounds

We definitely need all the micro detail 😁

Stereo is a fab joint anniversary present, and how wonderful to have been able to use vouchers and savings, and for there to be a declutter opportunity- that's the real gift for you isn't it 😂😍

It's not too far away from Christmas for Mr F to get you the bracelet so do discreetly (or not) check with him before getting it from your personal spends!

foxgloves

I am loving the declutter opportunity, @PennysIntoPounds, not going to lie about that! The silver bracelet is too expensive for a Christmas gift, esp. as he has already bought me a fab artisan knitting kit from the recent yarn show. I'm just going to leave it in its silversmith workshop for a while & a reasonable means to buy it may present itself, who knows?

F x

foxgloves

@Makingabobor2 - That's exactly the conclusion we both came to. It's certainly underlined how useful vouchers from credit card loyalty points can be. Both our cards are paid off in full every month & are used for planned expenditure so it does feel like we're getting something out of it....unlike the bad old days, of course!

Sun_Addict

That sounds like a brilliant joint present and something you’ll both enjoy. Then you’ve got the nice meal lined up and the holiday to look forward to. It’s a great feeling to be able to be able to cover things from savings pots/vouchers without using credit.

foxgloves

@Sun_Addict - Yes, covering planned & emergency expenditure from pots & vouchers feels much more satisfying than our old method of bunging it all on credit. I couldn't go back to that.

foxgloves

Morning Sunbeams,

Bright breezy day. We've both had a good session in the garden. I know I bang on about this every year, but this, NOW, is the beginning of the new gardening year. Spring is a very busy time for gardeners but there is loads of stuff to do now, especially those nicely frugal tasks which provide free plants (inc food) & stuff for next year.

*Took down greenhouse shading & packed it away for next Summer.

*Picked remaining tomatoes from red to green, green ones added to ripening tray in the conservatory which is doing well. No signs of blight so chopped up the plants for composting (another free resource).

*Sorted out strawberries, selected the best runners & popped them into little pots for rooting.

*Washed summer duvet to make best use of pegging-out weather.

Aiming for plenty of reading time later but need to chat through our diaries first so we know what we're doing this week.

NOT money saving - 1) Discovering a hole in our bath! In talks with plumber re a replacement.

2) Confirmation that we are hosting Christmas this year....though this is obviously more fun than a hole in the bath!

F x