Moving on

Cherryfudge

I got as far as putting the washing out, and it's nearly dry. Then I went to the shops and a little trip to get crisp breads turned into a bank holiday discounts spree. I'm really happy with what I got and the fact I managed to leave lots of stuff for others but I now realise I've fallen for my usual situation: my eyes are bigger than my stomach. It's a good job DH loves fruit, as we now have peaches, plums, bananas, grapes and lemons in addition to the oranges and apples we already had. Then when we got home, a neighbour has left some apples for us from her son's tree! We always get lots from her and generally give her some blackberries in return. Our tomato plants also came from her.

There were also bargain courgettes, a loaf of 'nice' bread reduced to 34p from £1.80, two packs of pastries at end-of-day prices and a  bargain pack of white fish, some of which is going to be our tea (change of plan). The rest of the fish fitted in the freezer and there was enough fridge space for the courgettes and grapes, so something's going right.

The lemons will make lemon curd along with some eggs I need to use. At 19p for 5 instead of £1.50, I would only have resisted those if I couldn't move for lemons at home. Don't know why I regard them as such a treasure but it's interesting to observe myself and notice a definite trend to buy more lemons than ever.

DH bought himself a top from the charity shop but it doesn't fit so he's not keeping it.

Total housekeeping £19.14. 
Clothing £3

KeepOnKnitting

Ooh I love lemon curd. You remind me, it's getting to apple season and I need to take some time to use some of the cookers from my apple tree this year. I don't think I used a single one last year.

Cherryfudge

KeepOnKnitting said:

Ooh I love lemon curd. You remind me, it's getting to apple season and I need to take some time to use some of the cookers from my apple tree this year. I don't think I used a single one last year.

Funny you should mention that when apples seem to be early this year and a neighbour has just given us a bag full! One year we borrowed my sister in law's house where there's a great big apple tree and the apples were going to waste... I cooked and froze about a million (perfect fluffy cookers), and introduced her step son to apple crumble. He is Swiss and had never had it but I think it's the perfect autumn food. I think he did too!

We have friends who have a juicer and just stick all their apples through that - organic apple juice from the freezer for free.  

Cherryfudge

I've done some research for the client but I need to push a few doors and try to find some leeway, so I'm meeting with the debt advice centre this afternoon to see what can be tried.

Meanwhile I didn't wake up till nearly nine this morning, so I think that will help me catch up on a backlog of rest that's gradually crept up on me.

DH has the day off and after I've had my meeting, we will go to the garden centre if I can find the gift card that needs to be used up by September - that's if I've not already spent it. I can take more plant pots and buy some bulbs and possibly cactus compost.

I have a short shift at work as my evening group isn't meeting, but I think I need to organise our day out which is approaching fast (Saturday). I think tickets are £15 apiece but the others will pay me back.

DH and I are debating whether to renew our railcard before our trip to Scotland. It runs out just before but, having looked at train availability, I think we will drive. It's too expensive to stay overnight in Edinburgh mid-trip, which was the early plan and a day trip by train is very limited as there are no late return trains - so car it is if we're to do that trip at all. It will have the advantage that we can take supplies and have a picnic at our leisure and DH assures me the car is good for a long time yet. However, I'm getting a bit edgy as we had to go slowly on a steep road recently. That's not how that road should be driven but we got stuck behind someone and the result was a strong smell of burning rubber! We've had that before but it's never been possible to trace it. The engine doesn't seem to be overheating and the car runs okay otherwise, but it concerns me.

The thought about the railcard came from wondering whether to put a whole fiver's worth of Clubcard points towards it but there's no point doing that until we are likely to use it. We therefore need to find an optimum spend for those points before they expire in the next few days!

Yesterday I left my debit card in my work bag so I ended up paying by credit card and the payments haven't processed yet, so I need to remember to return to the account and pay it off in a day or so.

DH has decided he wants to keep N3tflix, which we share with others, so that's a cost to go out. He wants to pay it in one go so it doesn't roll on automatically and we end up paying whether we use it or not. That payment should really go out today... which I will organise because the phone camera on DH's phone is broken so it can't read his blink to allow him into online banking. H has very kindly offered him her old phone but she's trying to get it cleared and the login somehow locked her out for 24 hours... it's never possible just to do things any more, if it ever was!  

I also need to go back into my regular saver account and check that August's payment has been made. I accidentally made it at the end of July and it bounced back as I'd already paid for that month. Now I can't remember offhand if I made it again later, though I think I did.

What that comes down to is I need to keep on top of the money over the next few days.

badmemory

I'm finding it harder every year to find something to use my clubcard points for.  Although I did very well a few years ago just before they stopped the 4 x s.  I had a foreign island holiday that only actually cost me the single room supplement & the flight from a different airport.  The last few years it has just been my TV magazine & they appear to have stopped that now.  I really do not want to have to use them just to pay for groceries, there is no feel good factor about that at all.

Cherryfudge

I know, @badmemory, it's largely lost the feeling of enormous savings, hasn't it? I think the railcard has saved us much more than we spent on it but we don't use it that often. We also got some Denby glasses which aren't cheap but seem to be nearly as unbreakable as their china (i.e. not quite unbreakable but markedly longer-lasting than the cheaper ones we had before). In some ways the donations option is a really nice one, but they will only exchange at face value there.

badmemory

The longest lasting glasses I have are the ones from Esso &Shell back in the 80s.  ExH used to do a lot of travelling with work & used to collect the vouchers.  I have champagne flutes, sherry glasses, whisky glasses & I gave a lot away a few years ago.  They are on sale for silly prices now.

Cherryfudge

I remember those, @badmemory. When I was clearing Mum's kitchen I found a glass cereal bowl of a similar vintage which came home with me and is still in use.

Today: another fairly full day. I spent over an hour discussing possibilities for the client's finances with the manager, which was very helpful. The credit card still hasn't updated but the building society has been checked and the payment did indeed go through on the first of the month.

DH now has H's old phone but can't use it till he can transfer from his old phone to the cloud and this is a bit tricky as the procedure is insisting he uses his 'other phone' - and he hasn't got one. I'm not sure what's going on.

I've had a couple of hours of work this evening and am in the middle of booking for the day out on Saturday.

Money-wise, nothing spent yet but it will probably be £40.50 for the tickets (just waiting to hear if there's another person joining us).

And the battle with the fridge has shifted ground: I've put a lot of rather sorry-looking veg in a bowl of water to try to cheer them up, and make soup tomorrow. The latest batch of curry is all gone, and we had the home-grown gooseberries (delicious but too tart for me) for dessert.

Right (said she, decisively), I should be getting on with my own budget. I am therefore going to research recipes for carrot and ginger soup.

Laura_Elsewhere

We used our ClubCard points a couple of years ago to replace all our old chipped varied crockery with nice solid Denby! We have four of their beautiful deep-blue big plates and four big wide pasta bowls in deep-blue; and we have big plates in their sort of speckledy 'Heritage' range, in pink, blue, green and cream, and medium and small plates too- all the plates are the 'coupe' sort with a raised rim, which we prefer. 

We struggle to use our points too- we've both just converted all our Nectar points to vouchers to use on eBay over the coming months- you have to convert them this week, so do that if you haven't and meant to!

WelshmansDaughter

Carrot, orange and ginger juice is lovely