Tenner Week Jan 2015: Day 3

It’s very easy to get caught up in large, expensive purchases that we can’t afford, and to some extent it’s also possible to become obsessed by spending absolutely nothing at all. So today, let’s spend just a teeny bit of money…

Today’s activity is to spend £1 or less on something. It’s up to you whether it’s a treat, something to eat, or something useful. It’s sort of a do-spend day rather than a no-spend day.

Haven’t tried an exercise like this before, so it will be interesting to see how this one turns out…

Where could you spend your £1 (or less)? Well, it’s not 100% easy to think of something straight off, is it? You can’t get much for £1 – or can you?

A few ideas:

• Stationery
• Sweets
• Art materials
• Pound shop items (anything from car care to storage baskets)
• Cleaning products
• Popcorn kernels
• Supermarket own-brand ice cream
• Hardware basics
• 99p ebook or music tracks
• Charity donation
• Add to savings

That’s plenty to be getting on with. I’m essentially wondering whether it will be a tiny treat and/or progress towards other goals, or whether it’s going to open the floodgates to temptations. Either way, this could be an interesting experiment to find out whether it has a positive, negative or neutral effect. I’d love to hear from you about your personal experiences of this.

What’s happening here?

I started the week on a risky one, buying a coffee for £2.20. Yesterday I went out to a free screening of a film, and was bought dinner and a drink – but that person knows they’re getting a meal and a drink out of me later during Tenner Week, so that’s kind of fair, I think. Also had to get some essentials from the chemist, so that was another £1.99 spent.

I also used 99p today to pay off a tiny bit of my credit card. To be honest it felt a bit weird, but let’s see how I feel about it tomorrow. I don’t have much on the card really, and was planning to pay it off in a lump sum at the end of this month. It’s kind of amusing to pay a fraction of it off earlier than that…

Meanwhile, I’m doing the TV Diet too and haven’t watched any TV so far. Probably subconsciously saving it up in case I’m stuck at home on a cold, rainy evening. Seems to be easier to get some good reading time in, have better conversations, make plans, listen to music, take it easy and relax, and so on.

How creative are you going to be with your £1? Let us know what you get up to.