Tenner Week: Day 5: Staying social

Day 5 of Tenner Week is ‘Staying social’ day. It’s very easy to end up staying in every night when you’re on a tight budget, or starting to feel a bit isolated even, so today it’s time to make a little extra effort to be sociable.

All you have to do today is make a tiny bit more effort than usual with friends and relatives. Okay, so you won’t be able to afford a three course meal in a fancy restaurant, or to go clubbing and get a cab home, but there’s still loads you can do. Take the focus off spending money, and put the emphasis on conversation, listening, and enjoying their company.

For example, depending on your finances, you could:

• Meet up for a pint and some chips
• Have coffee or tea and cake
• Invite friends round to yours
• Attend a free event
• Hold an online hangout
• Email, DM or PM
• Write a card, letter or postcard
• Use some of your free phone minutes

Whatever you like really, so long as you make an effort.

What’s happening here?

I managed another no-spend day yesterday, so the total spent so far this week is still £5.14. I also watched a second hour of telly last night (The Secret Life of Cats), which was fun. The rest of the evening I was out in the garden, fixing up raised beds, planting out modules, and generally drinking tea and stopping the resident moggies digging everything back up again after it had been planted. So far, so good, and my ‘fix it’ on the anti-cabbage-butterfly netting seems to have worked out well.

Yesterday’s food was tasty: choc porridge with fresh orange, scrambled eggs on toast, and veggie shepherd’s pie from the night before reheated and served with brown sauce and peas. In retrospect, should probably have had salad with lunch and extra veg with dinner. Will make more of an effort with fruit and veg today.

My stay social plan for the day has changed from the start of the week. The new plan is that two of us have managed to snag free tickets to an evening with Joss Whedon, including champagne reception. Holy moly! Possibly freebie of the century, but ask me later. Feels like the budget gods were smiling…

Available now: The ‘How to Live on £10’ ebook

To make your Tenner Week go with a bigger bang, try ‘How to Live on £10 a Week: Take the Tenner Week Challenge’. It includes a real life example of a shopping basket and menu, and plenty of free and cheap ways to keep yourself entertained.

It’s on sale at a low introductory price of £1.53, so please buy a copy while it’s on offer and help support this site. You don’t need to own a Kindle to read this book – there’s free, safe official software you can download to read it on your phone, tablet or computer.