Monday Freeday #1

Since moving to small town, I've been making lots of big life changes in my life and one of the biggest ones is getting my head around finances. Some people, my high school economics teacher Mrs Parton for one, probably won't be able to comprehend that a 31 year old woman (wish I could still call myself girl and get away with it!) is only just getting her head around something so fundamental to living life in our buy, buy, buy age and to be frank at my age, but it's the lamentable truth. I have been pretty out of control with the evil credit card... ah cards plural if I'm being really honest.

Obviously it is really important to understand everything there is to know about credit, debt, interest rates, how much money the card companies steal from you every month, and so on if you are to one day in less than two years have your own business. At the moment I am learning some pretty harsh lessons, including shock horror, you actually have to pay back all the money that you spent on tick plus a whole lot extra! Of course I knew this while I was having a great old spendy time in London, but it's so easy to ignore when you never physically hand wedges of money over to pay for things, you just have a nice thin colourful bit of plastic that you give to the ever so friendly sale assistant and they give you lots of presents in return.

So apart from having every cent I earn being instantly deposited into various envelopes with payback target date spreadsheets stuck to the front, I also thought I would start a new positive anti-credit card activity called Monday Freeday. I was going to call it FreeMon but that sounds like some kind of weird cult and those are generally costly, either through all the tithing you have to do or at the expense of your life.

The concept of Monday Freeday is probably blindingly obvious from the name, but just to set it in (blog)stone here's the idea:

1. No spending any money at all on a Monday - this includes using cash and/ or nice thin colourful plastic

2. No, not even Paypal

3. Instead, Monday is a chance to see what's out there that's gratis. I'm not expecting lunch or anything but surely a girl (woman) can get at least a few gifts from the universe on the house?

4. This means being a little bit organised on a Sunday if the cupboard is looking bare. I don't want Monday to become Starvationday.

5. Thought it would be interesting to record the free things I do manage to find each week, to prove to myself that it is possible to live without rampant consumption every single day of the week.

Without further ado, the first ever Monday Freeday gave me the following -

Free pizza from work (Thank you chef)
Free air for my bike tyres (Cheers boys)
Free eye test (Thanks girl with the good glasses)

It's a great feeling to not spend money, I am looking forward to doing more of it next Monday!