Tenner Week January 2023: Day 3

It’s Day Three of the latest Tenner Week budgeting challenge. How are you feeling now we’ve made it to midweek?

The general theme for the January 2023 challenge – apart from living on a set budget, of course – is simple daily ideas and activities to help with stress reduction, and today’s activity is something that I’m calling ‘connect‘.

For most of us, connecting with others in a positive way can be very beneficial for our general wellbeing, and it can help to get us all through difficult times. Sometimes we need to talk, other times we need to be the listener, and sometimes it’s more of a shared experience, but it’s all interaction that’s potentially good for us.

Today, try one of these:

• Chat with a trustworthy friend or relative about things that are troubling you – you may find that a problem shared is a problem halved
• Check in with someone who might need cheering up
• Get back in touch with old friends
• Ask for help from a charity helpline
• Look for volunteering opportunities near to you or via your workplace
• Visit a local community centre or drop-in
• Look for an evening class, exercise class, book group, walking group, or anything else where you can connect with others through hobbies or interests
• Look for ways to contribute to the environment, local services, or local politics
• Make arrangements to meet up with friends, such as a coffee, a walk, or a simple home cooked meal

What’s happening here

My cold, frosty Tuesday was relatively uneventful, and to be perfectly honest that’s exactly how I hoped it would be. A quiet day working, then a quick 30-minute exercise session, followed by a hearty bowl of pasta in ragu sauce sat in front of a mini telly marathon. It meant that I got to use up some leftovers, and also stay out of the shops, so my micro-budget of £1 was still safe.

Tonight, though, is going to be different, because we’re doing a little dinner party in honour of Burns’ Night. People are even threatening to read out poetry in scots dialect, so that’s going to be interesting because I’m sure only one of us is going to be even vaguely able to manage that. Meanwhile, we’re putting together a playlist of contemporary Scottish bands that do not suck, and will probably let one of them ‘pipe’ the haggis to the table.

How on earth am I pulling that together with no money, you may ask? Well, it’s a combination of cost-spreading, gifts, and cheap traditional ingredients such as root vegetables and oats. You wouldn’t be able to go out this afternoon and bring it in on budget all in one go.

The second I saw a MacSween veggie haggis in a shop a few weeks ago, I snapped it up and bunged it straight in the freezer. The rest is tatties (mashed potato made from spuds we keep stored in a cool place), and bashed neeps (mashed swede from veggies that also keep for weeks). The only other thing that’s on a traditional Burns’ Night plate is gravy or whisky cream sauce, and we can whip that up nice and easy. The other things I’ll be doing include adding some carrots to the neeps, and steaming some kale from the garden for extra greens just to make it more of a balanced meal. Oh, and I have some raspberries from the freezer to make cranachan with for dessert.

We were given a couple of bottles of decent wine and some really nice single malt whisky at Christmas, so we’ll be toasting the baird with that too, and I haven’t had to get anything else in so the budget’s miraculously still intact.

Total spent so far this week: £9.00.

How’s your budget looking right now? How do you think you might connect with others today?