I don’t know what the rest of 2018 will be like but last week was one of my favourite weeks of the year so far. It’s not so much anything to do with the fact that I successfully completed Dry January and so had my first drinks of the year but more to do with nailing a really good week where I worked hard, ate well and got to hang out with really great people while coming in under budget. Here’s what my week was like.

 

Monday

I went over to my mate’s for a delicious lamb chop dinner, a game of chess and we also saw the movie Miss Sloane on Amazon Prime (£0).

Tuesday

I slept over and so didn’t go to badminton as usual. We had an hour of basketball practice  (£0) instead then I went home to grab stuff for my football game. Football was slightly cheaper because we had a sub (£9.20). I picked up some eggs and cheese (£4.39)to use up my bread in sandwiches for dinner and lunch the following day since I gave up bread and pasta for my February challenge.

Wednesday

I took my egg sandwich to work and entertained myself after work by walking the person of interest to her football game before a quiet evening indoors (£0).

Thursday

I made a wee bit of money on my emergency fund (+£0.02) to start of the week. I only set up a standing order to an account in December. I’d previously stashed my emergency fund away at home.  I also paid for my ticket for my conference in San Fransisco (£337.47) – it was disappointing to cough out this much when I could have spent at least $150 less if I’d bought it in December. Cannae wait for my trip out regardless. My friend and I went grocery shopping for ingredients for our little dinner party planned for the following day. She paid for most of it but I also did some grocery shopping – food, toiletries and paper towels – for my house sitting space (£11.80)

Friday

I had made an ambitious plan to make a roast dinner for my mates and their mates at their house. We designated the night a dress up poker party so I took my chips and cards over with me. I forgot to pick up razors from my old house so I picked up some tights to cover up my legs (£6.99) and then in lieu of paying for my share of the groceries from Thursday, I picked up the cocktail mixers and a few bits and bobs (£5.90).

 

Saturday

This was one of those days that’s really awesome. It kind of feels lazy but also rather productive. I walked from the house sit in North London to Oxford circus because the person of interest had to give blood(£0) then I got her a smoothie from Joe & the juice because that’s a cool thing to do early on a Saturday morning(£4.45). 

We stopped off at the Moleskine store because she wanted to have a look at their mobile phone cases. I couldn’t resist the tons of notebooks on sale so I got a nice limited edition one for £11 – normally £21.99. I’d been craving pancakes for ages so when my mate came over we popped into the local fruiterer to get some bananas and blueberries then the off-licence for cheese, maple syrup, and milk (£7.76 for my share).

I went off to do some work on my (as yet non-money making) side hustle. We got a fair ton of work sorted and the person of interest joined in for a fabulous dinner of mussels and asparagus. They had the most gorgeous, soft, pale, (possibly undercooked) baguette that I couldn’t eat but the rest of it was filling and delicious (£0).

Sunday

I finally played in an 11-a-side game for the first time since September and it was OK. We didn’t concede any goals while I was on the pitch and I managed to play OK yet survive the game unscathed (touch wood).  In the evening my housemate and I went to see a spoken word gig / play at the Vaults festival and I bought a copy of the play text to support my mate who wrote and starred in it (£7). I made lunch and grabbed some meatballs from my freezer to snack on so that I wouldn’t have to resort to buying a meal out (£0).

Wrap up

I didn’t eat a single meal out last week! That’s incredible for me. You can also see that I slayed since I handled my trouble areas – dating, socialising,  and food – with creative ideas. I would have liked to avoid paying for the conference (sponsorship or as a volunteer) but I didn’t want to risk missing out on a ticket altogether

• Total budgeted for the week: £109.84
• Total spent: £57.10 (excludes the £337.47 for my conference as that comes out of my travel fund)

You can catch up on Money diary #1, Money diary #2, Money diary #3 and Money diary #4 too.

NB: All the diary entries are only my discretionary spending and exclude savings, housing, utilities and other more fixed costs.

NB2: All the things in green were budgeted for / in budget and the stuff in red was unplanned (for this week) or higher than budgeted.