We’re now into the second quarter of 2016, and the wintery weather is starting to turn into lighter, brighter days. It’s been a busy few months behind the scenes here, what with technical issues, people being ill, and quite a lot of freelance and personal commitments, but things are looking up for the Spring and Summer and I’m feeling inspired to get creative and make my mark on a few new projects.

As part of this, there are going to be some new activities, articles and themes here on the blog, and I thought you might like to know some more about what’s planned.

April

At the moment, I’m in the finishing stages of the 2016 Empty the Storecupboard Challenge, so please feel free to join in with that and maybe share some of your own recipes and progress. I’d love to see what you’re getting up to as well, so remember to tweet me some pictures of your thrifty cooking using the #EmptyTheSC hashtag on Twitter. There’s an archive if you’d like to check out all of the posts.

Once that’s been completed it’s going to be straight on to an Empty the Freezer Challenge, which I’ve been promising to do for a very long time. Should be lots of freezy fun, although I’m really not sure quite what’s lurking in there at the moment. I bet a few of you are in the same situation, wondering what needs to be used up! Must do an inventory when the time is right…

May

The whole of the month of May is going to be a Jump Start month, so there’ll be one simple new activity to try out each day, with a new theme each week to keep it fresh and interesting, As part of this there will be a new Tenner Week budgeting challenge which should save us all a few quid – always welcome. The general theme of the Jump Start this time around is going to be loosely based around ‘Getting ready for the Summer’.

June

I’m planning some articles around the idea of positive money psychology, including things we can do to motivate ourselves to save, and some ways to break certain bad habits and cope with that natural tendency to ‘not quite do the right thing’ financially. Expect some interesting new research and one or two money hacks to make life healthier and wealthier.

If there’s anything you’d especially like to see on the site, do let me know. Leave a note in the comments section or send me a message and I’ll see what I can do.