Tenner Week February 2023: Day 6

Aaaahhhh, it’s the weekend. We’ve made it to Day Six of our budgeting challenge, and everything is definitely feeling lighter, brighter and less cluttered here.

Today we’re going to drop off anything you’re donating or dumping. If there’s anything in your ‘to sell’ pile we’ll get to that tomorrow, but for now let’s look at getting everything else away from those newly tidy spaces.

One of the main secrets for a truly successful declutter is to get those unwanted items out of the house as soon as you can, especially if they’re broken, unsafe, need to be recycled, or they’re ready for a new home – otherwise it all tends to hang around, multiply, make even more of a mess or become a tripping hazard.

Here are a few things to consider when you’re making space:

• Empty indoor bins into outdoor bins if you can (depends on council arrangements, the size of your front garden or bin store, etc)
• Wash and dry old spice jars, shampoo bottles, hand cream tubes etc for recycling
• Put your recycling outside (sometimes depends on your local council, you may need to be flexible with this one)
• Look for a small appliance drop-off point (they’re often near a local supermarket)
• Take usable items to the charity shop, food bank drop off, community venue, or local shelter (check first about donation days and times)
• Run larger items of rubbish to the local tip (some council tips require you to book in advance)
• If you don’t have transport or a nearby tip for larger items of rubbish, research whether there’s a council pick-up scheme in your area and find out if it’s free or not.
• Put things to give away on Olio app, freebie sections of listings sites, recycling schemes or your local facebook group

If you can’t complete this task today because of other commitments then that’s totally fine, just pick another day and put it in your diary sometime fairly soon. Don’t let the messy stuff stay home and multiply though, show it who’s boss.

What’s happening here

You probably aren’t going to get much sense out of me today because I went to a marvellous party last night. Well, I was a guest at an awards ceremony so we were all asked to get dressed up. It wasn’t full on red carpet but the dress code was ‘smart cocktail / optional black tie’ and ‘if in doubt, dress up’ so that did involve a bit of getting ready.

If you know me in real life, you’ll know my attitude towards all those slightly evil ‘get beach body ready!‘ articles is this: ‘girl, put your sunscreen on, and put your body on the beach.‘ That’s it. However, I do like to make a teeny bit of effort if I’m a guest at an awards do, so I fished a nice Westwood-style-but-not-actually-Westwood cocktail dress out of the wardrobe, slapped on some makeup and cracked out the jewels. My body composition is currently approximately 75% canapés and I’m having trouble getting off the sofa, but I want you all to know that I took one for the team and selflessly drank the free champagne. Rude not to, right?

At some point later today, I’ll be schlepping a few old plates and nik naks over to the local charity shop, I promise. Possibly wearing dark glasses, and swigging plenty of water but who knows.

Spent yesterday: £0

Total spent to far: £3.75.

Have you got time to drop things off at the council tip or a charity shop this weekend, or have you picked a different day?

How’s your budget going, and have you managed to bag yourself any good freebies?