The first week of back to school is over, how was it getting back to reality? Did you set any new years resolutions and are you still sticking to them? My big new years resolution was to look after my body. This means food, exercise and meditation.
I am doing well, the exercise is progressing really well, I managed four whole days of exercise last week. I have meditated every day since New year and my eating habits have been much better. I am drinking lots of water each day, the vegetable intake has gone right up, I have cut back hugely on sugar. And I have cut back on meat, having lots of vegetarian days.
It hasn’t been plain sailing as I wrote in this post I published a few days ago explaining what happened last year with weight gain and binge eating. Have a read see if it rings true with you.
So how has my week of spending and saving gone.
A day at the Gym
I spent a day in Milton Keynes with friend and fellow blogger Emma from The Money Whisperer. It was a free days gym pass, lovely! We started the day with a HIIT class and then spent some time in the spa on the heated bed, in the jacuzzi and in the sauna. Its great to talk shop with someone else in the same industry. We shared plans for the next year and challenged what were great ideas and those we wern’t so keen on.
Keeping a Spending Diary
I have been very detailed and meticulous about keeping a spending diary since the beginning of the year. Its such a great tool to help you be aware of where you are spending money and you can reflect back at the end of each week to think about what you might do differently the next week. I have had a few big chunks of spending though, school trips and after-school clubs have all been paid for, that was £130 spent on swimming, netball and dodgeball for the term. Ouch.
Dylan’s Trip To Germany
Dylan headed off to Germany at the weekend for a big football tournament. There was some cost there in getting him Euros for his trip. But the main cost of the weekend had already been paid for. The boys did super well, they came 5th out of 20 teams and had a great weekend away. Whilst Dylan was away Josh and Jack spent the weekend with the grandparents. I had a whole two days to myself, it was great. I took the opportunity to go to see Bohemian Rhapsody at the cinema and properly loved it. I also did a bit of baking!
Baking my own bread
Who doesn’t love freshly baked bread? And I discovered a recipe this week by Jack Monroe for slow cooker bread. It so simple, I mean really simple. I baked the basic version, made up of just 4 ingredients, flour, water, yeast and salt. Knead and pop it into a loaf tin in the slow cooker. Here is the full recipe from Jack. I am looking forward to adding some different flavours when we make it again.
Saving Up for Christmas 2019 from now
I am the newest writer on the block at Mouthy Money where I will sharing my views every couple of weeks. My first article went live last week and I talked about saving up for Christmas 2019 starting now. How amazing will it feel next December if you have a few hundred pounds saved up to pay for Christmas rather than possibly getting into debt. Take a read of the article here.
