What Next?

Spent the last of the money there, more or less. £4.07, on a pastrami sandwich, a couple of big bars of chocolate for my housemates, a baguette and a yoghurt for Anya. Challenge over.

So, after two months, what have I learned? Basically I’ve learned that being skint isn’t all that bad if your rent’s paid. That and that it would be practically impossible to starve to death in this country. I think if I kept it going, it would get harder. I wouldn’t have anything left worth selling, and I wouldn’t have the stock of cigars and whisky that I’ve enjoyed.

Next month I will not be doing a £100 challenge. I’m going to buy things! Clothes and stuff. Should I still blog these purchases? If anyone’s interested enough, I guess I will. If no-one asks for it though, I’ll not bother.

I’m not ready to give up on the whole “one hundred pounds” idea though, so here’s the plan:

On the 23rd of May, Dave and I will arrive in Budapest. On the 10th of June we will leave from Gdansk in Poland. Inbetween these two dates, we aim to be in Serbia for the final of the Eurovision Song Contest on the 24th of May. We would also like to visit Kaliningrad Oblast, an exclave of Russia. From leaving Budapest airport to entering Gdansk airport, each of us has a personal budget of 100 pounds.

Day 21: Another Month

OK, here’s what I’m proposing: It involves a change in the rules, but hey ho. For that reason I need to get approval from you guys.

I’m going to Scotland at the end of the week for the weekend, and I’m going to be seeing people I haven’t seen in a while. The spending of money will be absolutely impossible to avoid. With only around £50 left, there’s no way I’m going to have much money left. What I propose doing is taking another £100 cash injection, and repeating the challenge till the end of March.

With the savings, I am proposing to buy return flights to Buenos Aires in April, to spend a month in Argentina, use up all my holidays in one go. The first 1-2 weeks of this would be with Dave and Wan (assuming Wan is in). The rest of the time, I would head off on my tod for a bit, practise the old Spanish.

Vote yay or nay please.

Day 4: The Rules Have Changed

As I walked to work this morning, in the lovely sunshine, I reflected on the fact that this challenge is a little harder than I first thought.

I thought, “ach well, at least it’s only till the end of the month, my friends won’t want this to go on for any longer than it has to. They’ll go for option A.“

But no, you’ve gone for option B, five-nil. So after the end of the month (assuming I make it to the end of the month) my suffering will stop being involuntary, and start being some masochistic experiment, for your voyeuristic pleasure.

I like a challenge, so I’m going to do this for as long as I can. The new rules are:

1. No borrowing money, goods or services
2. All income from my day job goes into a savings account, minus my rent and my phone, interent and optician’s bills
3. All gifts from friends or family go into a savings account
4. No scrounging, subtle or otherwise
5. The law must be respected at all times
6. Anything else is fair game
7. All financial transactions are blogged

This all ends when it becomes too much for me and I need to admit defeat, like I need to pay to go to the dentist or something, or I really want a Star Bar.

Any questions, clarifications or suggested amendments to the rules?

Day: 3 Greg Makes a Good Point

In response to my last post:

Greg Says:
February 7, 2008 at 2:10 pm edit
I think this is unfair, and not in keeping with the blog – one hundred pounds, one month. You’re just sellin’ a big pile of stuff to make it easy!

OK, I agree it makes it all too easy.

There’s 2 options to move forward from here, and I’m going to let you guys pick the scenario. Make your vote in the comments before 5pm tomorrow, and that’s the path I’ll follow.

Scenario A:

I stop selling stuff, and don’t add at all to my budget, and just scrape by till the end of the month. At the end of the month I breathe a big sigh of relief, and start living life again as normal next month, and I kill the blog.

or Scenario B:

I lose the end of the month deadline. I see how far I can go on the £100 I started with, by seeing how much money I can make on the side, by selling stuff if I feel I can do without. Each time I make it to the end of the month, and get paid from my day job, I pay my rent, my phone, the optician’s and the internet, and I stick the rest in a savings account I can’t get at. It’s sort of like a parallel universe where I only make about £400-450 a month (and that all goes on the bills). Everything else I do (food, drink, holidays, seeing friends) I have to try to get by on my wits. This goes on until I have to give up, either because I’m out of money, or I’m sick of it.

Your choice,

Cheers,

Robin