Tenner Week Nov 2012: Day 7 and round up

Saturday was the last day of my November 2012 Tenner Week, and I was down to my last £1.50. We raided the last of the berries in the freezer and made big bowls of mixed berry porridge to get us filled up at breakfast. Not quite the usual lardy weekend brunch, but very tasty.

I took some photos of things I was going to stick on eBay, and headed out to a meeting which had been arranged a few weeks ago. The host provided some lovely vegetable soup and cake, so I took some nice sourdough bread (from the freezer) along to make a bit of a contribution. It was sort of a working afternoon, and at least it kept me out of the shops.

Afterwards I was really in the mood to go out but ended up sticking with the original plan, which was to stay home and make pizza from scratch. Usually we have a few portions of dough in the freezer, but I had to make a new batch in the end. At least that means we have three new ones frozen up now for lazy / cold / rainy / tired evenings. Finding some toppings was more difficult than I expected, but I found a couple of sad veggie sausages at the back of the freezer.

We had a really tasty dinner after all that: thin and crispy pizza piled high with sausage slices, onions, homegrown red peppers, yellow tomato halves, herbs and mozzarella. There was enough radicchio etc growing in the garden to have as a side salad, and I added a glass of orange juice to make it to the  ‘five a day’ target.

Then I used up the last of my TV allowance watching an episode of Girls that I’d been saving up on the planner. All 31 minutes of quality cringe of it.

Here’s a quick recap of this Tenner Week:

Five a day fruit and veg: 7 days out of 7

Items on eBay: photographed, but not listed yet (will time it so the listings end on a Sunday, for better sales)

Words written: 6,500 of 12,000 target

Total spend: £8.50

Bonus points managed:

• Using up what you already have
• Doing something relaxing
• Keeping in touch with friends
• Finding a freebie
• Learning something new
• Being creative (if you count writing)
• Having 1 or 2 days where you spend nothing (6 days)

All in all, not a bad Tenner Week, and I still had £1.50 left at the end of it. However, it has definitely shown me how important it is to be organised and make plans if you want to save money and achieve goals and targets. The things I planned, such as meals and entertainment, went best and the things I didn’t make a proper plan for, such as writing time and eBaying, kind of went by the wayside somewhat. So, lesson learned, more planning will be done for the next one.

Speaking of which, the next Tenner Week will start during the third week of January 2013 – nicely timed for when everyone’s skint after the festive season. A useful way to make sure you don’t go overdrawn before January pay day. I’ll also be doing a whole new Jump Start January, so expect more information about that in due course.

Meanwhile, thanks to all you great people who’ve joined in with Tenner Week. Please let me know how you got on, and whether you have any handy ideas for other people who are thinking about trying their own #10week.