What a week I have had.
Before I go into it, I might as well say now that this crisis of mine is really a very minor one in the grand scheme of things, but nevertheless has really bothered me this week! Here's the story...
So for Christmas 2013 I got a brilliant thermos flask, which I have used almost daily ever since. I like a hot meal and so I use it to take hot food to uni. It's more expensive than your standard flask, about twenty pounds, but it really is excellent.
This week, I lost it.
Now normally, this would just be a bit annoying. I would tell myself off for being so careless, and then fork out for a new one. But it just HAD TO HAPPEN NOW, didn't it? Now, in week one of my budget challenge, just as show week is coming up - a week in which I need a lot of good hot food in me.
I wrestled with the dilemma of whether to buy a new one and break the rules, or to just go forth without one. My decision was made slightly easier by the fact that I would have to order it online, as they don't seem to sell my one in the shops. I didn't see the point in buying a cheap crap one, and all the ones I found were more for tea and coffee than for food. So it wouldn't be here in time for show week anyway, so I decided to just move on.
So I started making cold lunches again. On Thursday I packed both a lunch and a dinner because I was going to a poetry event in the evening. Of course, being on a budget I couldn't buy dinner so I made one. I had a lot of stuff in my rucksack that day, and so I had to put the lunches in a plastic bag.
WHICH I LOST.
So now my thermos and my two only lunch boxes were gone. I had lost all my food holding apparatus' in one cruel week.
Needless to say I had a day of absolute rage on myself (which I eventually meditated away)
Of course, I can't buy lunch or dinner because of this challenge. But with no boxes, I can't really bring meals in.
So I had to suck it up and buy a new lunch box.
As I say I start my financial week on a Friday, so this Saturday I went out with nineteen pounds to my name and bought a new box for a fiver. Leaving me with fourteen pounds. All of that I have since spent on food.
So I have managed to sort out the crisis AND stick to my budget, which I am very very happy about. However, I had actually hoped to come under budget, because next week the cast of the show I'm in are planning on going out for a meal, and I thought if I can save a fiver this week I could buy something better than a bowl of chips.
Alas, it can not be.
So thus far the challenge has felt like one big cloud of doom over my head - but as always there is a silver lining:
The fact is - I would have lost my thermos and lunch boxes either way. That was always going to happen. So even though it happened during this challenge initially seemed really annoying, it's actually a good thing. Because at the end of it I will be able to buy a new one with my savings, and I will still have loads left over. If I had done it any other month I would have probably paid for the thermos on top of the seventy I would have spent that week, and I would have forked out for some hot lunches in the meantime. But my challenge has made me more sensible than that.
And in a way it's already made the challenge quite interesting. My initial eighteen pounds actually stretched out quite well, and after a really successful first week I thought the month was going to be a breeze. But then this happened, and it made me think about how no matter how well you budget, sometimes life will just deal you a bit of a shit hand, and you just have to find a way around that the best you can.
So some food for thought there. Speaking of food - I am happy to announce that I managed to make ELEVEN portions of spaghetti bolognese for under a tenner. That is less than a pound a portion. And it's delicious. I'll save the details of that for another blog, but for now I shall just say that I am very very happy with myself.
Till then, let's hope this week is slightly less disastrous.
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