Lifestyle Blogger
Another Money Diary for you team. A post pay-day one because I find I actually spend *some* money when I’ve been paid as I’ve either been waiting to buy something and I’ll always have savings bits and bobs to move around. Enjoy! Let me know if you like a regular money diary?
As a reminder/info if you’re not a regular Money Diary reader, I have ‘house money’ which is basically our joint account for groceries etc and then anything not labelled with that is my ‘disposable income’.
An end of pay-month and before payday diary this time around. We’re still in semi-lockdown at this point but we’re allowed to see people in their gardens which is lovely as the weather this week is crazy warm from Monday onwards. Let’s get to the spending…
Thursday
Get up, it’s raining (warm weather hasn’t kicked in yet!) but I still have a walk and listen to At Home With Lily & Anna, really glad they’re back doing a podcast! Grab a coffee when I’m back in bed and see an eBay seller for an item I’m watching has knocked a fiver off a dress and sent me an offer so I accept! £10 for a New Look black slip dress which is v similar to an All Saints one I’ve been drooling over which is in their sale for around £60. I like to buy cheaper versions of clothes if I’m not sure how often I’ll wear them and then if I know I’m wearing it a tonne even though it’s high street I’ll look for a higher end or better quality version.
Nobody quite knows which direction the economy is going to go in response to the lockdown. For some, this is just a temporary blip, and our lives will return to normal soon. For others, we’re looking at huge financial change. So, lots of us want to save money to keep our family finances in good shape over the following months and years. You can read my lockdown money diary here if you’re interested in what I spent and saved recently. So, what practical steps can you take to save money? Here are a few tips and you can read more of my money tips and check out my budgeting spreadsheet here.
As much as I’m a huge TV and film fan – and I am – watching telly has to be up there with my most loved activities, screen time started to take over a little bit when phones come into play too. Whilst taking an Instagram break where I actually deleted the app off my phone – I know, big news, I decided to focus on a little chilling out and tried to pick up a new skill and practice a bit of self-care by leaving screens behind.
Disclaimer: Featured image 100% not representative of how I’ve looked this week FYI!
I planned to do a money diary a lot earlier into the lockdown drama but I wasn’t really spending much and honestly didn’t really know what I was going to say. Now we’ve just reach the end of week 6 and I decided at the beginning of this week to get my act together and do a money diary because I don’t really have much else going on in the way of content and I know these posts usually go down quite well!
There are a million posts out there telling you how to have the best lockdown ever peppered with those all important ones telling you it’s OK not to be productive but this isn’t either of those. This is literally a bit of a diary of things that I’ve watched, done, baked, ate, bought and more over the past month.
This is the first blog post I’ve written since our lives all changed quite a lot. When we wrote about the Rev’s brunch town was still quite a normal amount of busy and restaurants, bars and cafes were all still open so life seemed fairly normal.
Since then, we’ve gone into lockdown and essentially our homes are where we’re going to spend the majority of our time, like the serious majority. I’m leaving the house (via the front door) for as long as my daily exercise is taking me, around 30- 45 minutes! This is totally weird as I was used to leaving the house at around 8am and getting back at just after 7pm most days when I was at work in my office, heading to Reformer Pilates or a gym class after work and getting the bus twice a day.
And just like that, January is over and it’s the second month of 2020 already.
I wanted to share a few things I’ve been using with my new Papier diary and planning my time, trying my best to find the perfect balance between work, friends, family, getting outdoors, having fun and making progress – aren’t we all?
This post is in collaboration with Liverpool ONE’s eco-friendly campaign.
How to be more eco friendly has to be at the top of most of our lists this year – it sure is for us. I’ve spoken about this many times before on my blog all around day to day life and 5 ways to be more eco friendly and this post about sustainable style which is based around shopping my own wardrobe, shopping less and better and shunning fast fashion as much as possible.
It’s time for another money diary and pre-payday / post-Christmas is bound to be a weird one!
Saturday
A little new year’s resolution is to see as many people as I can basically all the damn time, especially in January because it can be a bit grim, can’t it? Popped to meet two of my friends and one of their super cute toddlers, free parking and then £4.30 breakfast and juice in Wetherspoon’s is a steal for scrambled eggs, toast, beans, veggie sausage and orange juice.
