A couple of weeks ago I was invited to join in a challenge originally set by Stephanie at her Full Of Great Ideas blog. I was invited by Mother Hen Strikes Again, who I follow on twitter. Ever since reading up about the challenge I have been thinking it over and wondering if I could possibly stick to it. The rules are quite simple: no frivolous spending. Essential items only. That means no crafting items, no sweets or treats, no books, clothes or CDs.
I can tell you now that I need to do this challenge as my bank account is in a very sorry state after Christmas, but I am a devil for snapping up a ‘bargain’ (read ‘buying unnecessary crap’). The thing is, now it’s New Years Eve and I’ve not made any half decent resolutions, and this challenge has been playing on my mind. So I’m going to take the plunge. January will be a month of essential spending only. I’m afraid I’m going to totally plagiarise Mother Hen’s blog here and copy her rules, which I will endeavour to stick to.
Mother Hen’s 7 golden rules are:-
1. Thou shall not spend ANY money on Crafts
2. Thou shall not spend ANY money on DVDs, CDs, Books or Clothes
3. Thou shall not spend any money on Sweets or Treats (make whatever you got for Christmas last until February young lady!)
4. Thou shall only buy essential groceries and make savings wherever possible!
5. Thou shall only complete crafts with the items already in the house
6. Thou shall not go to ‘Coffee’ or ‘Lunch’ with other Mummies unless invited to their home or them to mine
7. Thou shall think “thifty”
I confess, I have just placed an order for 3 books which are not essentials, but my justification is that a./ it’s not January yet, and b./ I received a gift voucher for Christmas which covered 80% of the cost and it would have been very rude not to spend it 😉
Oh yes, and I may have bought myself a dress yesterday too. But again, that was with Christmas money. Ok, you can see I’m already justifying things! All I can say is that I will do my best to adhere to the rules. Hopefully by the end of the month I will have saved enough money to get my car through its MOT in February. That’s the goal anyway!
So any January blog posts will contain craft created from what I already have in stock (although in all honesty I probably have almost as much craft stuff crammed into my house as my local craft shop so I don’t think that part will be tricky!).
I will try and keep you informed of my success (positive thinking there, see?!). Thanks Mother Hen for inviting me 😉