Resolution Thrifty

I remember listening to a talk about waking up early and having a routine. My reaction to early mornings was pretty much summed up by this emoji 😱. However, although I am still not exactly a super happy early riser I do like the concept of having a morning routine to follow and since the end of Summer, I have been doing my best to implement one. And of course it helps to have children who need to get up and go to school. So far this is what it looks like: Wake up about 6.30am Get dressed into work out clothes. Wake up kids. Use bathroom. Put on exercise routine - I go on YouTube and use one of these Walk a mile videos that average only about 15 minutes. Its easy to do and quite fun. 2-3 minutes of weights. Followed with about 10 minutes of stretching and Yoga exercises. This appeals to my frugal nature as it costs me far less than paying for a class and Make sure kids eat and send them off to school. Check the meal planner and make a shopping list. Shower and change into

The BBC iplayer has been showing old episodes of Horizon and I watched the one on fasting presented by the very amiable Michael Moseley. This is of course where the 5-2 diet first became infamous. I was impressed with the effect the diet has on things like diabetes, blood pressure and of course weight so have decided to give it go. Apparently fasting is also good for the brain cells which is even better as I feel like I have been suffering with 'foggy brain' recently. I also like the simplicity of the diet, basically for two days of the week with at least a day in between, you fast and only eat 500 calories for a woman or 600 for a man, if you are hardcore you can eat nothing at all. You can drink as much zero calorie drinks as you like so lots of water and herbal tea for me. The other five days there are no restrictions, I just eat normally, I do not attempt to diet on those days but at the same time I don't eat six eclairs, one is just fine or two! I started at the begin

I haven't posted on this thread for quite a while and I have no reason to justify this, I guess I just kept procrastinating until I simply forgot about it. I would like to say that I have used the last year well and achieved a lot but I think it has been a bit of a write off and I achieved little that could be called productive. Instead I fell into a bit of a limbo feeling sad about the state of the world and a little lost about what to do with myself. I wouldn't say I was depressed, more just a complete loss of focus so I threw myself into concentrating on the lives of my family and friends. I peaked in the summer and perhaps the heat wave we 'enjoyed' finally sweat out this apathy with my own life as with the return of grey clouds and a chill in the air I am beginning to feel myself again. With regards to frugality, I am still plugging away at it and to rejuvenate my commitment, I am returning to the basics: turn off lights and plugs when not in use; put on a cardig