Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

CRANKY40

Raining here too. I did about a tenth of what needs doing in the garden yesterday. I was hoping for more time today but given that the promised heatwave didn't materialise I wasn't expecting it. I need to do some cleaning and baking today so still plenty to do. 

Ash is very handsome. Our elderly lady is all grey - she's a pedigree with the digestive system of an alley cat. I bought her for the HT when I was widowed so he had a little friend. If I shout (even just "dinner") she stands in front of me and gives out. I'm not allowed to shout at her boy at all!

Makingabobor2

Bad weather here as well. DH got home from work about 12.20pm and decided to go out and clean the chain on his motorbik before the rain started again. He's been out there about 15 mins and its raining again and sooooooo windy. Apparently its the bad storms coming across the Atlantic. Wednesday looks even worse, 45mph winds then. 
Hope you get stuff done indoors. 

scandimore

It's been tipping it down here too, though seems to be easing now. Massive queue to leave the lake district as all the holiday makers departed, luckily I was coming home so was on the quiet side of the carriageway! 

Moorviews

It’s starting to sound rather wild out there already. I hope nobody suffers any damage. I don’t enjoy the wind I must admit!

foxgloves

Yes, it got very squally here yesterday - we had horizontal rain blowing down our street at one point. 
Well, the Easter Tree is still looking pretty, so I think I'll leave it up until the end of this week. Mr F has just left for work. I intend to spend today steadily working through laundry & other essentials. Will pop back later with any money saving achievements. Shall at least attempt to keep the faith.
F x

Makingabobor2

Have a good day. We have sunshine at the moment but 46mph wind this afternoon, so I will nip out quickly to buy veg from the Tues market. 

foxgloves

Hello Easter Eggs,
A reasonably useful day today, though the bright idea of changing bed linen first thing did result in me having an extra load of laundry. Never mind, nothing like climbing into a crisp fresh bed.
A few small money saving wins:
*Not a no-spend day, but I did find an Easter 10% off code for the one item I did have to buy.
*First load of laundry & some of the 2nd blew dry for free pegged out on the whirlygig. 3rd load & anything still damp now on heated airer, as I think tomorrow's forecast may also end up like today.....nice morning, but then squally showers moving in.
*Bumped tonight's planned meal to another week - plenty of Easter leftovers, so will do a couple of jacket potatoes & we can top them with whatever we fancy.
*Did belated Monday morning budget updates - grocery budget a bit over, but we have plenty of food in & I will do the rest of April's meal plans from existing supplies.
*Puzzled for 10 minutes over a Savings Pots anomaly. While the actual savings pots money sits in a single account, I update the spreadsheet detailing the 10 individual pots & their contents religiously, so I just couldn't think why there should be such a gap between account balance & spreadsheet balance. Oh well, & then I saw it & it was actually a nice thing! We'd received £133-07 of interest! That savings account (it's one of those which is aligned with ones current account) has had such pitiful interest rates for such a while that tbh, I'd actually forgotten it was an interest-bearing account! Rates defo must have gone up, as we only have 'Pots' money in there, not wider savings. Anyway, once discovered, I used it to make the Meow Fund up to £500 (which is its agreed maximum this year) & added the remaining £16.16 to the Present Pot. Three of our Savings Pots (Tech replacement, Appliances replacement & Meow Fund) are now at their agreed maximum holdings, so it will now work like snowballing......I shan't need to pay into those three again just yet (unforeseen expenses permitting) so will have more available for filling up the others.
*Checked interest on Emergency Fund/Car Fund (which share a savings account). While interest rates are still not as good as they could be, I was pleased to see a sum equating to almost 3 months of Car Fund payments.
*Did a couple of surveys.
*First full day of having the heating switched off. Time to build back some serious winter credit.
Well, that's me done for the day.....just need to pop down to the greenhouse in the rain to cover up the veggie babies.
F x
Oh, forgot to mention.....I realised that with being poorly, & everything which followed, then the Easter BH, that I hadn't weighed myself for a whole fortnight, so I popped on the scales first thing & discovered I've lost another 0.6kg, making a total of 5.2kg since 20th Feb. Feeling motivated to set up my 'Shopping from home boutique' now.

KajiKita

That’s a helpful lump of interest! 😊👏

How are you feeling now?

KK

milann

Pleased you’re feeling better than you were when I last read your diary. 

Love the cat photos 😻
Hooray to the interest 👏👏

EssexHebridean

I absolutely love the little thrill of seeing interest land in an account - and all the more so as we've had a good number of years where there has been so little of it too! I tend to opt for monthly interest on savings accounts where possible now as it's such a motivator seeing the amounts grow. 

Ash is indeed a very handsome boy isn't he - such beautiful colouring! 

I'm working up to having heating off by the end of the week I think - I would possibly have done it already but with the potential for having viewings on the flat (we've got one today - which I've not told my own diary about yet!) we don't want to run any risk of it feeling cold so are having to suck up the energy use for the time being. I do think the weekend might be the end of it for the year though as that will be mid April and I can't stand the thought of it staying on longer!