Tenner Week Spring Clean 2016: Day 6

We’re into the home stretch today with Day 6 of our Tenner Week Spring Clean schedule. Today’s simple activity is called Corners & carpets, and it’s time to get started.

If you wiped down lower walls and skirting areas yesterday then you’ll probably already have a very good idea of what the edges and corners of your flooring look like! It’s time to get into the corners for that full on Spring Clean feeling.

Here’s the quick Spring Clean for you:

Pick a room to clean (you can do more if you have time or the inclination)
Pull furniture away from the walls.
If you have a vacuum cleaner with an edging or small brush attachment, use this to get right into the corners and all the points where the walls or skirting meet the floor. Really get stuck in and get as much dust out of there as possible.
If you don’t have a vacuum machine like that, get into the corners with a small clean brush – an old clean toothbrush will do – and get as much dust out of there as possible. Use an ordinary vacuum cleaner to clean this up, or sweep it away on a wooden or laminate floor.
Give the rest of the floor a quick sweep or vacuum before putting the furniture back in place.
If you have rugs take them outside and beat them if the weather allows.

That’s it, nice and straightforward, but it’s a job that many of us forget to do or put off doing.

Feeling brave? Do this around your whole home.

I’m doing this in the kitchen to get the place sparkly clean from ceiling to floor.

How’s your budget going?

Yesterday I was unexpectedly taken out for a local lunch, which was a very nice treat indeed. I was the guest of someone who I’d bought lunch for the last time we’d gone out, so I didn’t feel guilty at all. And besides, it’s not like I ordered the lobster – I just had soup and bread, and a cup of coffee.

In the evening I cooked pies and veggies, which was warming and comforting while it rained outside. We watched some TV shows we’d been saving up on the recorder, and had a couple of bottles of beer which we’d also been saving up.

I then had a weird craving for dessert and nearly ran out to the shop for ice cream, but somehow managed to get a grip on that. Actually, it was probably ASBO Kitty throwing up on the rug that dented my appetite… but it all worked out to be a zero spend day, so I was still at £4.50 if I remember rightly.

Then it was out for lunch today because the sleety horrible weather was making us stir-crazy, and I had a panini for £3.60 and a cup of tea for £1, bringing the total up to £9.10. When it’s cold and rainy it’s hard to go out for a free walk in the park and have a picnic made from leftovers, although sometimes it’s better to just keep busy and stay indoors instead (that’s always an option if you’re desperate to pay off debts etc, and need to keep your eyes on the freedom prize).

I’ve also been having a serious think about the future, especially where finances are concerned. While I have nothing obviously bad on the horizon and am currently happily debt free after being hard working and strict with myself, I’m concerned that my emergency fund doesn’t reflect my freelance earning patterns. I need to have more put by in case of very late payments and clients possibly going bust.

Technically I’m probably going to be adding a layer of ‘slush fund’ over the top of my emergency fund, but keeping it all together in the same account. It’s good to reassess your savings from time to time, and I think I’ll be writing more about emergency funds and ways to beef them up a bit in the coming weeks.

How’s your Spring Cleaning coming along? What’s your Tenner Week budget looking like so far?