January resolutions & save the date for Tenner Week
How’s your January going so far? Up for a new challenge? Maybe a bit skint too?
Excellent! This is a Save The Date reminder that the third week of January is going to be a brand new Tenner Week budgeting challenge. If you want to cut back your spending before payday, this one’s for you.
This time around, the theme is Tenner Week Bonus Points. If you’d like to find out more about these old favourites, or you just want a reminder of the Tenner Week rules, that’s all here. There will be something new to try every day, so stay tuned.
This weekend I’ll do a Sunday Stocktake article, plus the daily schedule. As always the stocktake exercise is optional but it’ll be very quick and easy, plus it’s often helpful for saving a bit of extra cash. Then the full Tenner Week starts on Monday the 15th of January.
Join in!
Jump Start Challenge roundup
Did you join in with the 7-day Jump Start mini challenge? I found that it helped to make the first cold, dark week of January a lot more upbeat and interesting and I’d definitely do it again.
In particular, I found the ‘happiness play fort‘ and ‘choose a value, set a goal‘ days the most fun and the most thought provoking, respectively. I started by turning the shower into a play pen, which has really helped with waking up and getting energised on dark mornings. I picked up a £1 shower gel (Right Guard coconut water body wash, on offer this week at Tesco and Morrisons) and a £2.50 sugar scrub body wash (Dirty Works coconut foaming sugar scrub, smells of tropical monoi) as cheap treats and they were worth every penny.
Since then, I’ve tried to make mornings even nicer, and I treated myself to a new massager back brush in the latest Superdrug offer, buy one get one half price. Great for those days when you’re feeling a little sluggish, or you’ve woken up with a crick in your neck.
‘Choose a value, set a goal’ was more cerebral than physical, but it’s an exercise that could have longer term effects. I realised after checking through my values that I could have been a bit healthier in November and December, and I’d been doing a lot of things on autopilot instead of being a bit more dynamic and setting goals and targets. I also noticed that I hadn’t been doing as much for charity as I’d like, and I’d been reading fewer books too.
Not great, and no wonder I’d been feeling kind of listless because I’d been drifting away from some of the things I care about. That’s inspired me to make some changes over the next few weeks and months, so it was a good wake up call and I’m glad of it.
If you missed the 7-day happiness boosting Jump Start, here’s the full schedule so you can try it out for yourself if you want to.
January resolutions
While I don’t get on well with New Year resolutions, I do find monthly resolutions work out pretty well for me. Somehow a medium term goal is easier to stick to.
Looking at the values I wrote down, I picked health and books to get started with (I can cover different things in the coming months and I don’t want to get overwhelmed by doing too much at once). Then I chose some specific goals so there was something achievable to aim for.
So here are my aims for January:
- Attend at least 7 yoga lessons – I’ve already been to three, and they’re so good for improving flexibility and strength.
- Have 20 vegan breakfasts, lunches and snacks – This is a nod to veganuary, but more a more flexible way to ease my way into it (Tenner Week might be a bit tricky if I’m also aiming for a balanced diet).
- Read four novels – I’ve already been to the library and picked them up, so there are no excuses now. Currently toying with the idea of doing the optional TV Diet during Tenner Week, which limits telly time to 4 hours, and that would mean plenty of reading time as well.
Three seems like plenty, enough to concentrate on properly but not so much as to be too distracting from work and other commitments.
Will you be joining in with the latest Tenner Week budgeting challenge? Do you have any New Year resolutions or January goals too?
