How The Budget Challenge Came To An Early End

So, this post comes a bit late, but at the weekend I decided to finish my budgeting challenge.

If you've been following this challenge, you know it was a rocky month. The challenge was already on the rocks, and I had bent the rules a bit in order to continue. I had £16 left for nine days, which I knew would be doable, but difficult.

Then I had an encounter with a homeless man called Danny.

We've all been there, when a homeless person comes up to you and tells you that they are trying to get enough money together to go to a shelter. Sometimes you are inclined to believe them, and other times you are not. But I personally don't care whether it was true or not. What was abundantly clear was the fact that this young man was homeless, cold, tired and dirty, and he needed help. I try to make an effort to give money out to the homeless, and so I immediately handed him a pound. But then we got talking. It was obvious that Danny was not only physically starving, but he was also starved of attention. He wanted someone to talk to. So my boyfriend and I were talking to him, and he told us a little about himself.

He told us about how his state of health was so poor, that he couldn't drink hot drinks any more because they destroyed his gums. I could believe this looking at the state of his mouth, half empty of teeth and blackened. He told us about how some of the more violent people on the street harass him for the little money he manages to make. He told us about how one time he stayed in a shelter, his possessions and his sleeping bag were stolen, and that's why even though the shelters were more comfortable, they didn't feel any more safe. He told us that the reason he was trying to get to the shelter was mostly because he was desperate for a shower. He was holding a carton of whole milk in his hand, which I imagine was his main source of nutrition for the day.

A poem I wrote about the encounter

I think the reason he was sticking around to talk to us was because we, as a group, had shown him the most kindness he had seen all day. Between us he had made four pounds, and he only had two in his hand when he approached, so we had significantly boosted his earnings. He told us that he needed twelve pounds to stay in the shelter.

For a millisecond, mostly out of habit I imagine, I thought of how I needed to conserve my money for the sake of the challenge. This thought immediately repulsed me. There was no way I was going to hold back from giving to a person in need for the privilege of pretending to be poor. So I dug out six more pounds, and gave it to him.

Danny was overwhelmed, to say the least. And I was glad that I had done it. Whether his stories were true or not were irrelevant to me. I can't imagine what it would be like to be homeless. I could barely manage to stick to this challenge. And the way the homeless are treated in this country disgusts me. How can we call ourselves a civilized country when we can't even keep our citizens fed and sheltered?

So yes, I finished the challenge early. The finish line had been warped and altered so many times now I couldn't really see the point any more. But here are some good things to come out of it:

1. Because of the challenge, I have still managed to come under my usual budget this month despite buying a new phone. If I hadn't have done the challenge, I still would have lost my phone and bought a new one and therefore I would be in debt to myself, so yay for the challenge!

2. I have learned a lot about myself and my relationship with money. I am not as good at going without it as I thought! Even though the rules of the challenge were very clear, I was making compromises, knowing that it would make me end up over budget. I really struggled to tell myself no! It's important that I know this about myself, because I'm pretty sure one day soon, as a poor out of work actor, I am going to have to learn to make myself say no.

3. I have discovered I can still make delicious food on a budget. Good times.

4. I am now in the habit of looking for the cheapest thing on the menu. I feel this is a good habit to be in. In fact, I realized that a bowl of chips will fill me up fine! And this must be better for my waistline than the burger and chips I would usually go for, so I'm saving pounds in multiple ways.

5. I think, having experimented with being on a much smaller budget, I should be able to manage a happy medium between my old one of seventy pounds a week and the tiny sum of eighteen. Perhaps forty, that feels like a luxury amount now! If I can stick to this, I'll be saving thirty a week for when I have finished uni! Not bad at all.

So all in all, although it didn't turn out anything like I thought it would, I am happy with this challenge. But most of all, I have been really touched by my encounter with Danny. It seemed so perfectly timed, spooky in fact, and it really made me appreciate my situation.

It's also made me very thoughtful about the future. I have been becoming more and more passionate about the homeless situation ever since I moved to Birmingham. I really care about it, and I think now I've realized I want to do more than just give a quid out to each homeless person I see. I want to get involved on a higher level.

I haven't quite figured out how yet, but I will.

For now though, love to you all, and I shall announce my new challenge soon!

x

When Budget Met Crisis: Part Two

Hello friends

I am sad to report that this challenge is not going well!

The first two weeks I managed to keep in budget perfectly, despite the loss of all of my Tupperware.
Week three, however, has not been so successful.

It started well. I went out for a brunch meal with my cast and managed to only spend three pounds. My top tip for eating out on a budget, eat something before you go and then you won't be tempted by the big stuff, something small and cheap will do you fine and you get to spend some time with your friends.

Then the weekend rolled along and I made the executive decision to break the terms of my challenge, spending 15 pounds on a train ticket so that I could visit my Grandma. It was something my family had arranged, and there was no way I was going to let this challenge stop me from going. I don't see her very much, and it's important to take as many opportunities to do so that I can.

So I did that, leaving me with two pounds for the rest of the week, which obviously wasn't going to work out very well, seeing as I hadn't even done my food shop yet.

Then Crisis Number Two hit me.

And this is much bigger than Lost Tupperware.

Lost Phone and Lost Bus Pass.

I'd like to make it known here that I have never lost anything as important or significant as my thermos, phone, and bus pass. So this has been a very bad month for me.

It's felt a bit like this

So I had to get a new phone, and replace my bus pass of course. Now there was no way I was going to do this and stick to the terms of my challenge, so I took the opportunity to buy a phone I actually wanted (and was going to purchase with this months savings anyway) So I am now the proud owner of a windows smartphone - which, with the credit and charger, cost me £85. I also had to spend £5 on bus tickets (which I am sneakily reusing everyday until they notice and make me buy a new one) and £25 on a new pass, which should hopefully arrive in the next week.

Overall this crisis cost me: £115

Which I should have managed to save this month anyway - so that actually works out quite well (seeing as I probably would have lost these things whether I was budgeting or not!)

So technically, I have failed the challenge, by a long way, but I decided to just wipe the 'crisis money' off the slate and carry on as if nothing had happened.

And it's still not going very well.

For two weeks, turning down invitations out was not a problem, I was busy anyway, and committed to the challenge. But the more time goes by, the more depressing it becomes. I like being social and doing social things! So I had an invitation to go clubbing last night, which I haven't done in a long time, and I couldn't resist.

Club fee: £5. Taxi £3.

I've also done an £11 pound food shop this week, and had to put £3 on my printing account at uni so that is a grand total of...

£40 this week. When I should have spent just £20

So I've reached the end of the budget really, with nine days to go.

So Ashamed

So what now?

I suppose the challenge was kind of bound to fail the moment I spent £15 on a train ticket, when I only had £17 that week and hadn't yet bought any food. But I don't regret the decision. In my head, I had already saved a hundred pounds and I wanted to put that money to use right away in visiting my grandma.

So if that's the line of thinking I'm going with, that the fifteen pounds came out of my savings, then I suppose I can subtract that as well. Meaning I have spent £25 this week. This is still over budget, but next weeks budget was £21. If I take five away from that that leaves £16 from now until the 27th of February.

£16 in nine days.

Let's do it.

I have Officially Failed a Challenge

Yep, I am defeated. At over 36000 words, I had to call it a day on the challenge of writing a 50,000 word novel in thirty days (also known as NaNoWriMo) 

The reasons for this are as long as a piece of string but I will attempt to keep it concise.

When I started, I knew this was going to be a tough month. I’m currently in rehearsals for two shows, one of which is ‘Rent’ (which, if you don’t know it, is a very intense and long musical) and therefore my spare time is pretty much nothing. So I was filling it almost entirely with writing. The first two weeks were fine, I managed to balance it out ok. But at the start of this week I realised that I was going to have to put a lot more time outside of rehearsals into the shows. My options were either to stop NaNoWriMo or essentially not sleep in order to get everything done.

Honestly, for a few days I tried the no sleep thing. And I looked a bit like this.

I was getting up an hour early and going to bed sometimes two hours late. But it was worth it to get that word count up, right?? Well, the thing is, when I’m tired the quality of my work, both writing and at uni, is not do good. So what’s the point?

The phrase ‘what’s the point’ started to come up a lot in my head.

The topic of my novel requires me to do quite a bit of research. I can’t do the research because I only just have enough time to do the writing bit and get my word count up. So I was skipping over sections because I really couldn’t write them.

At first, I had really enjoyed what I was writing. But the more pressure there was on me, the more I was just writing anything to get my word count up. The novel actually ended up going in a direction that I really didn’t want it to go in, but I didn’t have time to go back and review it and change it. So I was just writing something I didn’t really believe in.

Because of the pressure on my time, I had given up exercise and meditation. I wasn’t blogging any more. I was spending almost no time socialising. Even my lunch breaks became time to write. My life had lost the balance I’ve been working hard to create in the last five months.

Thus far, I had managed to not let my uni work suffer. However, the work load just got a lot more intense and I knew that if I want to keep up to the working standard I have always upheld at uni, I was going to need more time. There was no doubt in my mind that this challenge was going to have a negative impact on my degree if I continued with it, and I really am not going to allow that to happen.

The reason I was so determined to write this novel now, and not another month, is because I didn’t just want it to be ‘I’m writing a novel in 30 days.’ I wanted to actively take part in NaNoWriMo, so that I would be part of an online writing community, who were all facing the challenge together. But because I didn’t have time, I wasn’t using it at all. I went on the website about twice. So now, I really was just writing a novel in 30 days, there was no other element to it. I could have done it any month, and any month would have been better than this. 

All these things combined, really, what’s the point?

Of course there was a part of me who was very fiercely fighting against all this.

‘You haven’t failed a challenge yet.’

‘You know you can do this you just need to get through it’

‘A bad novel is better than no novel at all.’

But that side of me, ultimately, lost. I sat down at my keyboard and all the reasons as to why I shouldn’t be doing this anymore kept flooding into my brain and made me incapable of writing any more. I thought I could get past the lack of sleep, the lack of socialising, the lack of meditation and exercise and other things that I love. I really thought I could get past that just for ten more days. But there was one thing I couldn't get past.

Thus far, I had managed to not let my uni work suffer. However, the work load just got a lot more intense and I knew that if I want to keep up to the working standard I have always upheld at uni, I was going to need more time. There was no doubt in my mind that this challenge was going to have a negative impact on my degree if I continued with it, and I really was not going to allow that to happen.

The challenge had become a pretty bitter experience for me, and so I had to stop.

So I made the decision to give up on NaNoWriMo. I had a good old cry to myself (genuinely) but then spent the rest of the day feeling like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. And that’s how I know I made the right decision.

There are a lot of positives that have come out of the experience, and I’m gonna save them for a whole different blog post. For now I’m just happy to be sleeping again. 

Is this what I've been missing out on?

Right.

I have only completed three days of my challenge, and I am astonished. On Monday night I got home and made my dinner, checked my messages and then thought: now what? Well, I juggled, I did some work, I read a little and then I got an early night. The next morning I ended up getting to uni super early because I was ready so quickly. So I got some extra work done before my rehearsal. Then last night, because I had done so much work in the morning, I took the evening to socialize and catch up with my friends. All month I've been meaning to read some plays in search for acting material, now I've read three in three days. In fact, I have achieved more in the past three days than I do most weeks! I'm on top of everything. And now I’m sitting here, writing this, with a whole evening ahead of me.

Where is all this time coming from? Has it been here all along?

I remember when I was little and I wasn’t allowed to watch too much TV, and we didn’t have a computer. I remember endless arts and crafts, reading, playing with my toys, drawing, writing stories. I remember sometimes having exhausted all of these options and declaring ‘I’m bored’, the day was going on forever! And then you grow up, and time seems to slip away. Of course, a part of this is because you take on responsibilities: cooking, cleaning, work. But looking back, I remember things did change a lot for me when I was about twelve: when the internet and freeview TV became a part of my everyday life. Slowly but surely, more and more of my time was being spent in front of a screen. Now I have cut down (not even given up completely!) and already I am overwhelmed by the time I am surrounded by. I feel like I am getting that feeling back of having long days ahead of me full of possibilities.

It’s all so exciting. I really can’t wait to see what else this month brings.

Twenty seven days to fill!

Sorting Out my Priorities

It’s time for a new challenge. The meditation challenge made me very reflective and I really began to examine how I spend my time. It’s so easy to slip into the habit of doing activities that don’t really stimulate the brain or even make you feel good. The habits I am referring to are watching crappy TV and scrolling mindlessly through facebook. I don’t know why I indulge in these things, but I do, and it takes up an alarming part of my day.

So my initial thought was to cut both out completely.

But I’m not going to do that.

First of all, facebook is unfortunately a key part of my life now. It is how my classmates and I communicate on pretty important stuff. If I didn’t go on it a lot of things would fall to shit, and I can’t expect other people to change their habits and do things differently just because I want to purge myself of facebook. So I need to go on it from time to time. I have decided my maximum allowance is three times a day. Once in the morning, once when I get back from uni and once before I go to bed. Already this seems like a lot, but trust me it will be hard for me. And I genuinely need to check it that often for any updates about my rehearsals etc. 

There are some other rules as well:

When I open facebook, I will read/respond to my notifications and any messages, and then I will immediately shut it down. I will not scroll through my wall. I will not read any articles people post, ‘like’ or post any statuses, watch any videos, nothing. I’m going to keep my activity strictly to communication.

Now for the TV side of things. I could cut out all TV, I could. But then I thought of two things: The Great British Bake Off and Dr Who. The thought of losing those shows made my face do this:

I'd love to see Dr Who - Bake Off hybrid. Mary Berry would make a great alien. 

BBC make it happen.

I love these shows, they are only on once a year, and they don’t hang around on iplayer very long. If I cut out all TV I would be depriving myself of some genuine treats that I have waited for all year. And for what? I don’t actually think all TV is bad, I just think I should watch less of it, and that I should prioritize what I watch. So that’s what I’m going to do. Bake Off and Dr Who are going to be my only two TV indulgences of the week. Because of this, I won’t have to do what I often do, which is multitask and do other things whilst it’s on in the background so I can fit it all in. I can actually sit down, take some leisurely time and really enjoy the show to its fullest. And all the time I would have spent watching crappy, not important TV I will spend doing other things, like my homework for instance.

Yep, the main reason I am doing all of this is because I have a big show on at the moment, and I need to be committing a lot of time to it. But I also need a balance, I need to see my friends and do social things otherwise I will become miserable! Work and social life have to take priority right now. Mindless procrastination has to go.

So there, it’s gone.

Here’s to a productive and fulfilling month.