Could you live on £10 pocket money, or £25 all-in, for a week? Could you have an enjoyable week and keep yourself entertained as well? It is possible! Put your budgeting skills to the test, and give yourself a confidence boost.

Welcome to PennyGolightly.com, the home of the Tenner Week Challenge. We’ve been challenging ourselves and each other since 2009, and hold a new Tenner Week every few weeks.

How a Tenner Week works – The Rules

It’s a simple challenge, with a choice of two different budgeting options. You have to stretch that budget out over seven days.

Choose one of these:

  • A: You live on a cash budget of £10 for your personal ‘pocket money’, or;
  • B: you have an all-in personal budget of £25 for everything.

A Tenner Week Challenge is a useful thing to try if you’re low on funds the week before payday, getting out of the habit of overspending, or trying to kick start some savings. There’s an optional TV diet too, so you don’t end up slumped in front of the telly in the evenings.

The £10 ‘pocket money’ budget option is just for your non-essential items, and you have to try to keep all your other personal spending as low as possible for the week. Your pocket money could include:

  • Going out for coffee or other drinks
  • Snacks while you’re out and about
  • A book or a magazine
  • Something from a second hand or charity shop
  • A cheap ticket for an event
  • Notebooks or other nice stationery
  • Craft materials
  • Cheap movie or music downloads
  • Anything else you want, but don’t really need

The £10 pocket money is probably the easiest option for beginners, as it’s so simple to keep track of.

If you want more of a challenge, the £25 all-in personal budget is for:

  • Your PERSONAL SHARE of any food & drink you might buy
  • Going out: teas, coffees, snacks, pub etc
  • Entertainment
  • Hobbies
  • Any other shopping, essential AND non-essential

Your £10 or £25 personal budgets don’t cover rent, mortgage, utility bills, prescriptions, travel to and from work, anything you need to buy for work, tickets or subscriptions you’ve already purchased.

IMPORTANT: It also DOES NOT include any money you need to spend on your kids / pets / partner – your personal budget is just for you.

A Tenner Week is about quality of life too – not just budgeting

You are encouraged to recycle, mend, upcycle, improvise, use up whatever you already have, and avoid waste wherever you can.

The optional TV diet, if you decide to do it, means sticking to a limit of 4 hours or less in front of the screen at home or at a friend’s house. You’re allowed to watch TV at the gym, or watch a film at the cinema if you have a free or cheap ticket, without adding that to the weekly total.

You get ‘bonus points’ for keeping busy on a budget too, for example:

  • Keeping in touch with friends
  • Rediscovering old hobbies & activities
  • Getting your home into shape
  • Learning something new
  • Eating healthily
  • Keeping up your fitness levels
  • Being creative
  • Finding useful freebies
  • Helping others

Getting started with a Tenner Week

Anyone can do a Tenner Week of their own any time they like, but it’s more fun to join in when other people are doing one, so that you can swap tips, recipes and ideas.

For the latest Tenner Week Challenge, and to see past weeks, visit the Live on £10 category where all the posts are listed. There’s a social media hashtag too: look out for mentions of #tennerweek.

Get the ebook!

We also have an ebook for anyone who wants to take the Tenner Week challenge. It’s packed full of even more thifty ideas and resources to help you eat well and live well on less. Please buy a copy and help support this site.