Tenner Week Jan 2015: Day 7

Last day of Tenner Week. Taaa-dahhhh! Have you survived the £10 Week Challenge? Seeing as we’ve all been budgeting so hard and being so sensible for the last few days, it’s time to cut loose and indulge your inner kid.

Yes, time to be silly. Think of all the things you loved to do when you were six, eight or ten years old – before being sensible and responsible took hold. Hobbies, interests, fun stuff, or just anything that gave you a sense of wonder or made you laugh.

Make a list. Was it something like this?

• Riding on my bike
• Learning about dinosaurs
• Eating sherbet and popping candy
• Writing funny stories
• Reading terrible jokes
• Visiting a favourite relative
• Having friends round for tea
• Eating salt and vinegar crisps really, really slowly
• Making collages from magazine clippings
• Reading gossip about pop bands
• Drawing cartoons or making sketches

I’m sure you can think of a whole bunch of your own things to do in a list like this.

Now pick one and go do it again. Things like this are nearly always free, or cost pence.

What’s happening here

Managed a no-spend day yesterday, so was I still at the £7.88 mark this morning. However, tonight is the big finale, and I’m going for a ‘free’ evening out. In real terms it’s actually a cheap / brilliant value evening out, because I have a pre-purchased voucher for a meal and a drink, plus bargain tickets for a show. Both purchased weeks ago, so not a deliberate cheat – plus you’re allowed to use things up during Tenner Week like vouchers, tickets, points and course bookings (no point letting stuff go to waste).

Edited to add: I tipped the waiter £2 towards my share of the bill while we were out, which left me with a total of 12p in the old purse for the end of Tenner Week. SUCCESS. The set menu meal at Belgo was excellent value, lots of food plus a beer or prosecco for a tenner (usually £21.50) and we really enjoyed ourselves. Yes, I could have been mean and not left a tip, but the staff were working hard and it seemed wrong not to.

Why was the show so cheap? I accidentally stumbled upon a ‘work in progress’ run that wasn’t being publicised. It’s someone well known and quite reliable in comedy who’s doing previews of a new show. Quietly confident that it will be worth the measly entry price, and it’s someone I know I’d happily pay a lot more to watch because I’ve done so in the past. I loved jokes as a kid so this is my treat for the day.

As far as the TV Diet goes, I’m not planning on watching the gogglebox before midnight tonight, so I think we can say that’s been a success. Three and a half hours watched in total. More reading was done, more plans were worked on, etc etc. As much as I like the schedules at this time of year, I do find that watching too much telly contributes to feeling sluggish rather than taking my mind off it, and being highly selective seems to help.

How are you planning on mucking about and acting like a big kid today? And how’s your budget looking?