This week I am taking part in Tenner Week, of Penny Golightly fame. The rules of Tenner Week are deceptively simple: just survive on £10 for seven days. Is it possible? I’m not entirely sure I’ve ever survived on that little since I arrived in London flat broke many years ago, and getting by meant living off very little – I’m going to have to dust off the ol’ frugal habits and flex my stingy biceps, but I think it can be done. Well… I’m going to give it my best shot, anyway!
You can read the full set of rules over at Penny’s blog, but in short the gist of it is as follows:
The £10 only includes things you buy for yourself, and nothing you need to buy for your kids, pets or rent, bills, direct debits etc. It also excludes weekly travel cards and/or petrol needed to get to and from work. You aren’t supposed to sit at home watching TV every night, and you get extra points for trying something new, using up existing foodstuffs and having one or two no-spend days.
By virtue of the fact that this month I am trying to get organised, I decided to take part in the challenge in order to give myself a bit of extra time to get some things done that I’ve been putting off. What would I rather do on a week-night? File my tax return or pop to the pub for a nice glass of wine? Catch-up on some image filing or kick back with a few episodes of The Killing? These are questions that require no answers, but that doesn’t change the fact that the less exciting chores just mentioned still need to be done. Also, this is the most depressing week of the year, everyone’s broke, and the weather is currently sucking the big one, so here we are! Tenner Week!
So far this week I’ve spent just £2 on a coffee in the park while walking the dog. Sunday was spent catching up on mundane chores and last night I worked late and hit the gym. Tonight I’ll be catching up on Sunday night’s Sherlock, and the big challenge this week will be tomorrow night, which is date night. I’m slowly working my way through things in the freezer (which is a bonus because I’ll be able to defrost it at the end of the week, hopefully); and as I have a grocery food buying compulsion that borders on the insane, we are certainly not going to starve. I’ll keep you updated on my progress via Twitter.
Are you taking part in Tenner Week? How are you finding it?
