This blog’s coming to you a little later than usual, but I’m glad to say I’m still here and I haven’t given up!
The lead-up to Christmas means it’s been a little crazier than usual, so squeezing in some time to write this has been challenging. It’s safe to say I’m looking forward to a bit of time off over the holidays.
But last month was pretty great and interesting for several reasons – read on…
Here’s what I did…
The main theme that framed the month was that I had set myself the challenge of a ‘No Spend November’ – only spending money on the basics like rent, bills and food.
Why did I do it you ask?
It’s been a while since I got to the end of the month without having gone into my overdraft.
Money is always a constant course of anxiety for me, and as much as I try to watch the pennies I also have a bit of a ‘fuck-it’ attitude sometimes because y’know, life’s short.
I wanted to see how much I could save, see what I’m necessarily spending on, beat that FOMO and save money for a couple of trips I’ve got coming up next year.
It was easy going ‘cold turkey’ because it meant I could easily say no to everything – no to drinking and eating out, no to buying things, no to picking up a few extra bits at the supermarket. It got easier as the month went on too, as it became the status quo.
I managed to save £300 which is very good going for someone who has basically never saved money in her life! It admittedly got spent straight away, but it was on something that I had been saving for. All will be revealed soon…
So what did I learn?
- I can save money if I put my mind to it
- Money spent on time with friends is always worth it and something you should never feel guilty about – i.e. a couple of drinks at the pub
- You don’t need things to make you happy!
However there was one spanner in the works which meant I ended up spending a little bit more than I would have: I went on a date. Which turned into two dates, three dates…
Yes – ironic isn’t it. Last month I wrote about dating myself, and here I was this month very unexpectedly dating someone else.
I’m going to remain fairly tight lipped about it for now, but I couldn’t not mention it as it was a pretty big feature of my month! All I will say is I’m happy and pretty excited about it.
It all *kind of* started at my friend Becky’s Halloween party which kicked off the month – I was pretty happy with my skull makeup (which took about three hours – I followed this YouTube tutorial if you’re interested) and DIY costume thanks to inspiration from Hubbub!
November was also a big month at work – we effectively ‘re-launched’ with a new look AND new software. It was very exciting as it’s something we’ve been working towards for a long time now and I like being kept busy by things like that. There’s been a lot of work created on the back of that, and we’re still smoothing out some bits to make it run like clockwork but overall it’s a massive improvement on the previous version. It seems I should now add ‘model’ to my job description, as I posed for our press images – but it’s not the first time I’ve been photographed as promotion for work!
I also had a little weekend away with my work family in Norfolk which is a part of the UK I’ve never been to before. It was a very chilled couple of days which involved walks on the beach, good food and games. We stayed in a beautiful house belonging to a friend of a friend which was a stone’s throw from the beach. It was also seal pup season and we were lucky enough to see some along with their parents who were floating around in a little estuary that led into the sea and being rather friendly to onlookers!
I did a bit of Parkrun tourism for the first time in a while, and woke up extra early to hop on the overground to Southwark Park. It was a very well organised run, and a nice flat course so perfect for a PB – which I did get! I was supposed to be meeting a friend there who didn’t show, but I ended up bumping into my colleague for which it’s her local Parkrun and I forced her to do the selfie frame with me. We popped to a little Italian place afterwards for coffee and croissants!
And as always, seeing lots of my other lovely friends:
I went for a drink with my friend Alex at a new favourite spot – Bullfinch Brewery in Herne Hill – where we drunk delicious mulled cider and played board games.
I had a delicious homemade brunch with my friend Becky, good chats, and watched ‘A Knight Before Christmas‘ on Netflix.
Celebrated Fireworks Night with a few friends, and bid farewell to our friends Ellen and Max who have gone off travelling for 18 months!
Joined a few friends to celebrate ‘Chai Day‘ in aid of The Circle – which involved drinking tea, eating cake and talking about women’s issues.
And hosted my games night for the first time in two months! Here we are in the middle of an intense game of Dobble (ignore me while I laugh at my friend Gemma’s face in the background), and my friend Stefan brought a strategy game centred around a haunted house which was good fun.
I also got the coach up to the very strange place that is Milton Keynes for a surprise hen do for my friend Claire, who I met on a group trip to Costa Rica nearly five years ago. She’s now very happily engaged to the lovely Carys and I’m very excited for the wedding next year! One of her sweet friends organised the night with a bunch of Claire’s uni friends who I’d never met before, but by the end of the night we were dancing in Popworld together. I was in need of a good night out, and a good night out it was (I cannot confirm whether or not I had a headache the next day.)
This month I’ve been obsessed with…
Not spending money! I really enjoyed the challenge, and it felt really satisfying to save a decent amount of money which was used towards something worthy.
I’ve been reading…
I finally got around to Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata and it was a great little read. Funny, quirky and poignant – I’ve already been recommending it to people.
I also indulged in a little cheeky romance that I spotted on the shelves in the library – Royal Holiday by Jasmine Guillory, which was a light and fun read, but I’ve been itching to get back to Harry Potter.
Want to keep up with what I’m reading? Come follow me on GoodReads.
I’ve been watching…
TV
I’ve not been watching as much TV this month, but I have watched a few episodes of Modern Love (thanks to my housemate for having Amazon Prime Video) which I absolutely love. All the episodes are separate so you don’t have to watch them in order, but they’re all real stories based on The New York Times’ ‘Modern Love’ column and I can’t resist a bit of good storytelling.
Film
I have a bunch of DVDs of films that I haven’t watched yet and because we’re constantly streaming things these days I often forget about them. But after watching The Social Network last month, I had the chance to revisit my collection and ended up watching ‘Whale Rider‘ with my housemate who has seen it before but was keen to see it again. It was completely different from what I expected but I thought it was a lovely film that was emotional and heartwarming.
I finally saw ‘Yesterday‘ which is all about a failing musician who, after an accident and a worldwide blackout, discovers that the rest of the world doesn’t know who The Beatles are. So he re-records their music and becomes a global star with their songs in the 21st Century. Unfortunately I was a bit disappointed with this one – it had its moments but I didn’t find the main character entirely likeable and the whole thing was a bit lacking.
Other than that, I’ve been on the cheesy Christmas movie trail again – they’ve all been spectacularly shit but one that I did quite enjoy was ‘Let It Snow‘ on Netflix.
Music
I’ve been listening to…
Cold Little Heart and Bones by Michael Kiwanuka
Movement by Hozier
Garage Classical by DJ Spoony – Flowers feat. Sugababes is a favourite
This is How (We Want You To Get High) by George Michael
and I’ve rediscovered Colourblind by Darius and I can’t get enough of it.
Looking ahead…
I’m going to pretend that we’re not already two thirds of the way through December, but most of the good action is still to come anyway: Christmas!
I’m still working a bit over Christmas but I do get some time off which I’ll be using to sleep, read and spend with family. I’m going to switch off from the outside world for a bit too – I’m planning to go on a bit of a social media/phone break so I can properly rest and waste time offline.
Until next time (by which time it’ll be 2020, gulp) – wishing you all a Merry Sproutmas!
according to gaia 