How Much are you Wasting on Getting Wasted

Jan13
by TFS on January 13, 2014 at 7:10 am
Posted In: Budgets, Financial Independence, Personal Finance

Booze!

I read an interesting guest post by Jacob from iHeartBudgets at Budgets are Sexy the other day which was a look at how much money he had earned and spent throughout his entire life, and then comparing it to his net worth. The upshot was that his net worth was a meagre 15% of the total amount of money that he’d earnt or otherwise received! Naturally this got me thinking about the money I’ve spent during my lifetime, and I’m sad to say that my net worth as a percentage would be even lower than that right now (13% with a very rough estimate).

The perhaps even sadder thing is that I’ve been relatively well behaved in the personal finance stakes, never carrying a credit card balance for any significant amount time, never even financing a car.

So how come I’m not stinking rich by now, I hear you ask?

Well, I could moan about the low wages and economy and stuff like that, but it really just boils down to the first law of personal finance: I’ve spent all of the money I’ve earned, simple as that. I’ve been good at saving up throughout my years, but ultimately it has all been spent on unproductive assets (apart from the deposit for the flat, plus mortgage payments, you might argue). I then thought of some more questions:

  • What have I spent actually it on?!
  • Could you consider any of the spending particularly wasteful?
  • If I hadn’t spent that “wasted” money and invested it instead how much would it be worth today?
  • How much percentage would my current net worth be increased by?

Where’s it gone?

Travel? Yea I’ve spent a lot on travel, but the experiences I have had impacted me in such a positive way I think they were totally worth it. That was not wasteful in any way, in my opinion.

Getting Married? Again… it was a lot but I wouldn’t consider this a waste.

I was having trouble thinking of something, somewhere, I might have been able to actually save some cash and put it into investments, then around that same time this article from Stephen at the Simple Economist (which is well worth a read as well by the way!) popped into my inbox and the answer hit me square in the face like a flaming tequila at 2am.

BOOZE!

Yes the old moonshine my friends. I’ve had my fair share of the stuff. I’ve been drunk, pissed, wasted, trolleyed, hammered and gazebo’d more times than I care to remember can actually remember. I will offer no excuses as the only one I could really come up with is “everyone else was doing it” which is no excuse whatsover. But considering that I came of age when the terms “Binge Drinking” and “Booze Britain” were coined, the drinking culture was clearly as pervasive throughout young society as any times previous. Did I really ever stand a chance? 🙂

As Stephen points out in his article, alcohol doesn’t bring you too much on the positive side of the holistic balance sheet, so I think out of all spending categories, this fairly described as the biggest waste of money in my life. So let’s find out the damage, and find out what my net worth could have been if I were a tee-totaller.

0-15 years

Easy one to start of with. A big fat zero.

16-17 years

I somehow managed to get into a few pubs and clubs despite looking about the age of 12, so started my life long habit of spending money on booze. Ten pounds back then could get me wasted and I used to earn about £30 a week in my part time job, I’d say at least a third of that went straight up against the wall so let’s call it a round £500 a year

Running Total: £1000

18-19 years

At the age of 17 I got a better job (It was selling computers, very lucrative just before the dot com bubble burst!), and at 18 I left school to go full time for one year. I could do the job with a hangover pretty well so it didn’t stop me going out 3-4 times per week. Midweek nights were cheap, maybe £20, but weekends I could drop up to £100 if we went out “on a big one” up to London or something like that, although that obviously was not all on alcohol. Average weekly spending was probably £100 on the actual alcohol. Let’s round it to £5K a year

Running Total: £11,000 (Eep!)

20-22 years

I went to university! So the full time income obviously dropped like a lead balloon. However I’d saved up a fair bit from working for a year and decided to make use of a student loan as well, plus working during the summer enabled me to continue to spend a fair bit on the amber nectar. Things were cheaper with student nights and discounts, but on average I’d imagine I spent around £50 a week on the devils water. So three years of that tots up to a nice fat £8,000 slightly rounded up.

Running Total £19,000 (Gadzooks laddie!)

23-25 years

I got a full time job fairly soon after leaving University (Yay!) but there seemed to be a bit of a booze culture at this new company (Booo! Although I wasn’t complaining at the time obviously). On average I probably only went out 2 times a week in this period, but being based in London, everything was a lot more expensive. I would say I easily spent £400 a month going out each month during this period, as that is what used to allocate for myself in my half-ass budget back then. There wasn’t much fine dining, bowling, cinema or any other non booze related activities included in that figure, so let’s say £350 per month of that was going straight into giving my long suffering liver a bloody good kicking. Per year that’s £4,200 and £12,600 for the full three years.

Running Total £31,600 (*Eyes pop out! Liver whimpers!*)

26-32 years (i.e. to present)

I met Mrs TFS when I was 26 so I am going to lump this period of my life together, as gradually we started to do coupley type things as our relationship became more serious, which generally involved slightly less drinking. But not that much! What can I say, we both like to party. Anyway at some point I started to do a more serious budget and our “Going out” budget became £400, but now this was for both of us. So over time I’ve pretty much halved my expenditure on alcohol. It was more at the start of this period and less now, so I think it’s fair to average it out at £150 per month over the whole period.
That’s £1,800 per year, I am going to round this up to £2000 though because of a few holidays here and there, and because it sounds like too low an initial estimate. So we have £14,000 for this total period.

Final Total £45,600

Man alive! That is a lot of cash to have spent purely on a liquid based form of entertainment. The real figure may be even higher, especially considering some of the extra expenses I would have paid that seem to go hand in hand with drinking alcohol such as club entry fees, kebab at the end of the night 😉 etc… Overall I think that is a pretty good estimate of what I have spent purely on the liquor itself.

Now for the final peice of the puzzle: What would have happened if I’d invested this into stocks and shares? How much closer to FI would I be right now? Or would I already be sipping champagne on the beach tea in my flat rather than on the train to work as I type this.

I’ve made the following assumptions and methods when calculating the figure:

  • Assume a lump sum on January 1st of each year with the preceding years “savings” from not drinking alcohol.
  • Assume all savings are in a tax wrapped ISA so all capital gains remain untouched by the tax man.
  • Assume Dividends are paid at 3%, and expenses are 1% to be on the high side*. These are paid and deducted yearly also. The remaining 2% is reinvested immediatley.
  • I will take the yearly rise or fall of the FTSE 100 and recalculate the portfolio value every year.

I made a spread sheet to do the calculations, if you are a geek like me and want to have a look you can view it here: Yes I am a geek!

If you don’t want to bother looking at it then no worries, the final figure of the portfolio would have been:

£58,831

At 4% draw down this would currently be producing a yearly income of £2353 and a monthly income of £213 – all tax free of course. Ok, so I still wouldn’t be financially independent yet, but I’d be a hell of a lot nearer, and my net worth would have been over 330% higher compared to what it is right now!

Conclusions

The lesson here is not that you should never drink alcohol. It’s not even that we should look back on life and regret what money you have spent on things that you no longer think are worth it. People change and with them so do their priorities, no big deal.

Realistically I’m not even going to cut out alcohol entirely like the Simple Economist has done (massive respect to him for doing so though!), but I’m looking at my current £2000 a year figure and thinking I could easily half that with no determinable difference to the amount of fun I have in my life.

So the lesson here is simply that whatever your level of spending and no matter how frugal you think you are, there is always something in your budget that you can identify as wasteful spending. Maybe if I was a tee-totaller I would have spent all of my money of collectable Star Wars action figures? Or DVD’s and music? Who knows? The point is to work out where your money is going down the drain and where you can put the plugs in most effectively.

A good excercise is to look at your budget from the eyes of impartial third party, maybe even as your new ultra strict financial coach theFIREstarter if it helps, and see what you could be wasting.

Now divert those extra found dollars and pounds to your investment accounts and see your early retirement date get nearer by leaps and bounds!

Readers: are there any areas of spending that you’ve been particularly wasteful over the years and could now cut back on easily if you put your mind to it? Whether it’s been on cars, beauty products, booze or star wars figures, please let us know in the comments section below!

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*I have no idea what total expense ratios were like back in 1999!? If anyone would like to let me know in the comments I can always update the calculations Back ↑

20 Comments

The Badass Cookery Class: A Beginners Guide

Jan10
by TFS on January 10, 2014 at 8:43 am
Posted In: Bad Ass Cookery Class, Frugal Food

 

Badass cookery class kebab

A badass kebab I made during cookery class last night

Frugal Food Friday is back with a vengeance in 2014 and I’ll be making it a weekly feature, but before I start to post some more recipes a thought had occurred to me back while I was talking about how to cut down your shopping bill. The most effective, yet toughest to implement tip in that article was no doubt the “learn how to cook” one, especially if you are starting from a base of little to no skill in this area. You might just be starting out in adult life, you might be a take away junkie or restaurant frequenter, or you might just be one of the “Oh I simply don’t have time for that” gang, but whatever your excuse, if you read this guide; an excuse you will have no more. I still remember the days when I couldn’t cut up a carrot properly; one great thing about cooking is that chopping technique is almost completely uncorrelated to how tasty your creation will be, and also let’s not forget that practice makes perfect, so get in the bloody kitchen and make me some supper!

I’ve focused these tips on making your kitchen as efficient as possible so you can save yourself time, energy, money and waste less food. Some are designed to help beginner chefs eased into the kitchen life with minimal fuss, some are great time savers for the don’t have time gang, and some might just be things that experienced cooks of many years may never have even thought of. I would like to thank Mother TFS for teaching me how to cook from a young age, a lot of these are from her but some of the more efficiency based stuff I’ve cobbled together myself over the last 12 months of lifestyle optimisation. Enough waffle(s)… Get ready to take the badass cookery class!

It’s a marathon not a sprint

Buy a slow cooker! Both a time and energy saver, this could be the best £20 investment you ever made (or get a second hand one, I bet there will be a load of practically unused ones on ebay/craigslist/freecycle in a couple of weeks). You can cook melt in your mouth stews, casseroles and joints of meat (think pulled pork and beef brisket!) and all you have to do is chuck it all in there and go out for the day. The slow cooker does all the heavy lifting for you and has a real knack for making meat taste mega yummy. It uses the same energy as the average light bulb, so you can leave a joint in for 8 hours and it will still use less electricity than your oven does in 2 hours. Get one, invite your mates round, and bask in the praise emanating from their satisfied little taste bud filled mouths.

Buy a pressure cooker

Get a pressure cooker! I haven’t bought one yet but it is something I might consider in the future. You can cook things such as rice, beans, and lentils in half the time and using one quarter of the gas (you can turn the gas off and things continue to cook for a good amount of time afterwards as the container is sealed so well). You can also cook stews and soups in double quick time as well, as well as use it as a conventional pan. Apparently these ones are pretty decent, at £109 though you can see why I haven’t bought one yet but it has been recommended by Mr Extreme Frugality himself.

Slip me some skin

Don’t peel your vegetables! This one is a major time saver and I can’t believe I spent my whole life up till about 9 months ago bothering to peel vegetables. I’m talking potatoes, carrots, parsnips and so on (you might want to draw the line at swede) and salad such as cucumber. A quick wash and away you go. If you are worried about the taste then don’t, for most part you won’t tell the difference and if you do you’ll get used to the new interesting flavours within 3 or 4 meals. The other huge benefit is that a lot of the vitamins in vegetables are actually stored near the surface, so by not peeling them you are getting the full healthy benefits, as well as saving yourself a few precious minutes every meal time.

Bigger is sometimes better

Cut your veg up chunky! There is a slight trade off between cooking time here but if you’d rather get your veg in the pan or oven as soon as possible and do something else while it’s cooking then why bother taking the time to cut it up so small? Besides, chunky veg tastes better in the mouth. This and the tip above are great for beginner chefs who think they haven’t got time to cook for themselves, as peeling and chopping are probably the thing that takes the longest time in the beginning, as it can be quick a tricky skill to master.

You can call me “al dente”

A posh sounding way of eating veg is to have it “al dente” which means a little bit on the hard side. Reduce cooking times by 20%, saving time, energy and money, and pretend you are dining in a reet fancy rest-oh-rontay. Again the more you boil veg the more nutrients go into the water so less cooking is healthier as well. You can do the same thing with pasta as well of course.

Cooking on gas

If you forgo the pressure cooker like myself, you want to make sure your pots and pans are working as efficiently as possible. Use the following rules:

Water boy: Only cover your veg, rice, etc with as much water as necessary, otherwise you are wasting gas on heating the excess water which is pointless, and will also waste your time as it will take longer to get it to temperature.

Kettle mettle: I always boil the kettle and pour water in the pan so it starts off near to boiling. I am not 100% sure but this would seem to be the most efficient way energy wise to get the water up to temperature (a naked flame is horrendously inefficient as most of the energy is used up heating the air around it, so I am assuming the kettle trumps it). It also saves you a good 3-4 minutes of waiting.

Put a lid on it son! – Something I see novices and experienced cooks alike do is forget to put lids on boiling pots. Putting the lid on will semi pressurise the pan, like a really wussy version of the pressure cooker, but any slight edge you can get in your energy consumption, you should take it. The contents will rise to temperature faster and cook quicker, saving you time and money.

No stray gas please – Another obvious tip yet one I see ignored in many households. Once a pot is boiling, turn the bloomin’ gas down! I sincerely hope no further explanation is needed but email me if you have any questions at ifellasleepduringphysicsclass@thefirestarter.co.uk

DO touch that dial – I am still experimenting with this one so not really too sure of it’s merits, but just like with the pressure cooker, the contents of your pan should in theory carry on cooking after you turn the heat off. I reckon you can get at least 2-3 minutes at the end of your cooking time “sin-gas” which could transfer into a 10-15% saving for rice, pasta, and some veggies. Doesn’t sound much but when combined with all these other tips, the energy savings will rack up.

Oven cooking

My main tip would be to avoid oven cooking where possible and use the slow cooker instead. However some things this is not possible. So if you are going to use it, then try to cook things at the same time and keep your over fairly full. You can also try the same switching off early technique as with the gas, turn it off 5 minutes before time and leave in 5 minutes longer, as the overall temperature drops over the time, then you obviously need to leave it in slightly longer to make up for the lower temperature. (Note: I probably wouldn’t do this with meat based products!)

Make the most of your meat

Cook whole joints. Boil up chicken bones and leftovers to make soup. Save the fat and the juices to make gravy and stock. If you are worried that eating too much animal fat will increase your chances of disease, then simply eat less meat. If we are going to endorse killing the things to eat, the least we can do is make the most of the resource they provide, rather than chucking half of it down the drain or in the bin.

Recycled veg water, it tastes like it oughta

As mentioned above, when you boil veg the vitamins get sucked out into the water. Reuse this water for your gravy. This saves reboiling the kettle and you get some of the goodness back into you. Win! (Apologies for the extremely bad “pun” for the headline of this one. Please read my new disclaimer over on the right if you have any issues with this)

A touch of Defrost

This requires a tiny smidgen of forward planning, but if you remember to get your frozen stuff out of the freezer in the morning or the night before cooking it, then your cooking times will be cut in half. I know you could use the microwave to defrost things in this new-fangled-techno-age we live in but we are talking about efficiency in all areas here people, so using the age old physical equation of temperature increase plus time to defrost something is much better in every way. (Don’t leave raw meat or anything else for that matter out for 10 hours in 30 degree plus heat. Better to put it in the fridge the night before to defrost in that sort of weather)

Compost food waste

This is only really relevant if you have a garden with a space big enough for a composter, which we currently do not. But if you do then composting food waste is a no brainer to reduce the waste entering your bins from your kitchen endeavours, and feed your garden fauna with some rich compost!

Packing the right equipment

Basic badass – I would consider the following to be essential when starting to cook: A frying pan and small/medium/large pan. 2 baking trays (for a roast joint plus potatoes), 2 chopping boards (one for meat one for veg, don’t mix them up!). A sharp knive or 2, fork, sieve, colander, slotted spoon, wooden spoon. And obviously some crockery and cutlery to eat it with!
Next level badass – Optional items but ones I actually still use regularly: Garlic crusher, whisk, potato masher (a fork is just as good for this really though!)
Go go gadget badass – Microwave, kettle, and at a push a hand blender if you like smoothies, soups and making your own smooth sauces.

I bet you have most of all the above items already, whether you cook for yourself regularly or not right? Anything else is a waste of time in my opinion. As for the multitude of other electric gadgets out there, don’t bother! I’ve bought a few in the past and they are a waste of time, money and cupboard space (after they’ve been used twice). I was nearly temped to buy an electric egg poacher last Christmas but I’m glad I didn’t. Instead I learnt how to poach an egg properly in a pan, much more satisfying and no doubt far more tasty as well!

Show us yer tips

So there you have it! The complete cookery course for badasses. I hope you enjoyed it and found some good tips in there whatever level of cookery skills you currently possess. It would be great to hear some of your best kitchen tips in the comments section, I am sure there are many more I haven’t even thought of with the vast array of techniques and types of food and cooking out there.

Please do share your cooking optimisation tips with us, thank you, my now fellow badass chefs!

TFS

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Further Reading

Here is a nice resource list of articles about energy efficient and eco friendly cooking tips that I find around the webs!

Ideas for replacing cling film @ Eco Thrifty Living

Stop using Foil and Baking paper @ Eco Thrifty Living

7 Comments

Mega-Detox Challenge Log

Jan08
by TFS on January 8, 2014 at 9:50 am
Posted In: Health & Fitness, TFS Challenge

For the initial Challenge Throwdown click here

To check out the Challenge Hub with details of all previous challenges click here

I’m writing this intro after just one week of doing the challenge and I have to say it’s been a little bit harder than I thought. Seeing as I thought it would be quite hard in the first place, you can gather that it has been quite hard! Why so I hear you ask? Well you can find out in my detailed day by day run through below. I won’t make further updates as verbose unless something really crazy happens like seeing a unicorn on one of my runs or something, but for the first week I feel it is worth expanding a bit on each day where necessary.
I have no real physical targets I wish to achieve (such as doing all 50 press ups in one go) other than simply completing the challenge in tact. Although I have earmarked trying to improve my weekly average pace of the run section by 30 seconds over the course of the month.

A quick note on my abbreviations below: I’ve written how many Press Ups (PU) and Burpees (Bps) I did and in what number bursts. So 15/10 (PU/Bps) means I did 15 Press Ups, then 15 Burpees, then 10 Press Ups, then 10 Burpees. I hope that makes sense. You can see the stats for each of my runs in the screen shot from my running app I will post each week. Oh what exercise geekery we have on this blog!

 

Week One Log

Running log week 1

Running log week 1

Thursday – A tough run due to still feeling the effects of NYE. Legs were very achey. Did 20/15/10/5/5 PU/Bps all in one go. Those last few were reallly hard tonight! I think I’ll try to split that part into a morning and evening section of 25 each in future.

Friday – Morning did 15/10 PU/Bps. In the evening had a cinema* and meal date with Mrs TFS. Did the run as quickly as I could before, then quick then PU/Bps when got back in a set of 10/10/5. All a bit crammed in today but I think that is way things are gonna pan out!

Saturday – OK quite a lot to say about today. I stupidly sat around all morning, then decided to reseal the bath (It’s been on my to do list forever and had a free afternoon, and decided to pass up working on the blog/reading other blogs as that’s been taking over my life recently!). Anyway my parents came over for dinner while I was just finishing off the bathroom then I told them I had to go out for a run which was slightly awkward, but they didn’t seem to mind. I then realised I couldn’t have a shower as the sealant was still drying, but again no one seemed to notice! We then went to my Sisters for a family quiz night (rock n roll!) and then I had to do the PU and Bps at 1am when I got home, which was pretty tough. The lesson learned here is get them all out of the way as soon as I can if I have even 20 minutes of free time to sit around!

Sunday – Ah… lesson from yesterday instantly forgotten as I waited till the evening to do it all again, and the rain sounded pretty relentless. So a horrendous run in howling wind, freezing cold and pissing rain. I stopped a few times to try to take some pictures (see below!). Did 15/10 PU/Bps before the run and 25SU/ 15/break/10 Bp after it.
Cold wet and windy UK storms!

Not the best weather for running!

Phone camera lens started to get a bit wet here!

Not the best weather for anything for that matter!

Monday – Getting into the habit of doing 25/10 PU/Bp in the morning and another set in the evening now, it’s definitely the best way of doing it. The run was crammed in yet again as we went round to see Mrs TFS’s parents before they go on holiday.

Tuesday – Stuck with the morning/evening routine for the PU/Bps. Actually had time to do the run tonight and as these things often go I did in in the equal best time so far and I felt pretty good as well throughout the whole thing. I’m positive things can improve from here!

Wednesday – I have to meet my Sister at 7pm tonight to go to the cinema** which would make a run between getting home from work and then extremely tight, so I thought I’d give a morning run a go. What a revelation! I never thought I’d be able to do any sort of run in the morning and I am not traditionally a morning person, but it was actually quite easy and I feel great! I guess the lesson here is to try things you think you won’t like, you might end up being nicely surprised. Also did 15/10 PU/Bps and will do the same after work quickly.

Average pace of runs throughout the week: 7:32
Aim for average pace to hit in the final week of the month: 7:02

The times were a bit all over the place this week due to blowing away the cobwebs from the Christmas indulgences, and the blowing of the galeforce winds and rain! I am hoping to get that average below 7 minutes before the end of the month is out which should come with improved fitness, more consistent times, and hopefully better weather.

Notes on the other aspects of this challenge

Caffeine – Not drinking tea is actually proving to be much harder than I thought. I’m not saying I’m acting like some sort of crystal meth addict but whenever someone offers me a tea I always have to check myself as the automatic answer is usually “yes!”. Also there are those classic combinations such as tea with a bacon roll, and tea at certain times, that I am really missing. It’s almost like the food doesn’t taste as good if I’m not eating it with a cup of tea. So in that sense it is an addiction of habit, a bit like smokers trying to quit miss having a cigarette at certain times of the day or with their tea or coffee more so than at other times.

Alcohol – As expected the first week at least of this has been a breeze. We’ll see how I go in weeks 2, 3 and 4 though. I’ve got a golf weekend with “the lads” on the 25th so that could prove hard but I will stick to my guns!

Exercise – The daily exercise could be viewed as hard but it’s really a matter of attitude. The whole thing seems to tie in neatly with the stoic thing of voluntary discomfort, which I am actually getting now. Yea… sometimes my muscles and joints ache both while I am doing it and afterwards. But ultimately it is a good sort of pain, and only light in nature. Some of the conditions for the running have also been pretty extreme and uncomfortably cold and wet as well. But again looking at it through the stoic lens, I was just thinking how my next walk in similar conditions whilst wrapped up warm in my coat and hat would seem like a nice and cosy experience.

 

Week Two Log

Week two running log

 

This week I’ll just give a brief summary of each part of the challenge

Running – Quite a tough week again, I got some good times but also some bad ones. I did a slower five mile run on Sunday with a friend, which was a nice change. The Thursday run was down to Lidl and back, spot on one mile. I had a bag of groceries on my back for the way home! I came down with a bad cold on Tuesday so felt a serious lack of energy. The Wednesday time is split into two because I was working late and decided to time my run to the station at one end and then on the way home at the other end, which was spot on one mile. I had my usual clothes, coat and bag on for this run. The combined pace was 8:09 for those two runs!

Average pace this week (not including the 5 mile run): 7:10

If I can hit that after week two with some bad runs and a cold in there I am going reassess my target for the week four average to: 6:45

Push-ups and Burpees – Nothing really to report. Just doing 25 in the morning and 25 in the evening as usual. I think I might increase this when I get over my cold otherwise I won’t really feel like I making any progress in this category as it doesn’t feel like it’s getting any easier (but I feel like I could do more, if that makes sense!?)

Alcohol – Nothing of note to report for this week. Haven’t had any obviously! I have another potential banana skin this Friday though as there is a work event on Friday. I wouldn’t normally be too bothered about either missing one or just going along for a bit and having a few sodas but this one is to celebrate a project I have been working on for over a year. It’s my pet project so to speak! Bit awkward. Bit annoying. Not really sure what to do now but I will report back after on whether I decided to break on this one.

Caffeine – This has become easier this week. No more headaches and I have gotten out of having tea with breakfast, lunch, and other times of the day. I’m still not sure of any benefit but I guess I am sleeping slightly easier, and actually I’m feeling slightly less stressed at work even though this last week has technically been very stressful. Maybe there is something in this after all?

 

Week Three Log

Week 3 Mega Detox Challenge Run times

Week 3 Mega Detox Challenge Run times

Running – There were two anomalies this week. The first of which was the Thursday run which says a pace of 9:10 which is a load of rubbish, my GPS cut out so it didn’t track some of the run. I timed it and it was 7:27 for the mile, as I am doing the same course every day I pretty much know exactly the point when I cross the mile barrier (It’s the end of my road). Secondly the 1.5 mile run to my mum’s house. I am quite liking combining going somewhere I actually want to go with some exercise, it’s really good! I included that in the average times because it was only a slightly longer run and I could keep up the pace I wanted to.

Average pace this week: 7:10

Push-Ups and Burpees – I have changed my Push-Ups technique which has made them slightly harder to do. I.e. before I wasn’t really doing it properly! I also stopped doing 25 in the morning and 25 in the evening to do them all at once, just before I go for my run. Combining all of it together provides a better work out I think.

Caffeine – Sleeping very well so hoping that is something to do with this! Pangs for a cuppa are getting further and further apart, but still a few times per week.

Alcohol – Nothing to report! I got my weeks mixed up and the banana skin will actually fall in week 4.

 

Week Four Log

Week 4 Mega Detox Challenge Run Times

Week 4 Mega Detox Challenge Run Times

Running – One anomaly this week which was the stupidly slow 8:00 time on the Wednesday. What a shame! I played squash on Tuesday and it completely seized all of my muscles up the following day. I’m not too bothered as the squash was a wicked work out and a lot of fun! Seeing as there were a few days left over I worked out what my average was for the final 7 days of the month, along with those final 7 without the silly 8 minute run, which makes the stats look  a bit better. I’m all for fudging the figures if it makes me look better 🙂

Oh I also went out guns blazing this morning for my final run and beat my previous best with a 6:30 pace, so I was happy about that!

Average pace this week: 7:10

Average of final 7 days: 6:56

Average of final 7 days not including slow run after game of squash: 6:52

Push-Ups and Burpees – The squash game screwed my arms as well as my legs so had to go back to doing short and pathetic bursts of push-ups so get them all done, but I managed to struggle through. Rest and recovery period is needed after strenuous exercise… NOTED!

Caffeine – Nowt to report!

Alcohol – OK well you guessed it… I cracked and had a few pints at the pub after work on Friday. As I’d already failed I also had a few on Saturday after the golf. A shame, but no big deal really in the scale of things. I think I have taken enough away from this challenge already which I will write about in the final results.

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* Don’t worry – this was part of Mrs TFS’s Christmas Present and I got the cinema tickets for dirt cheap on a voucher deal. I haven’t gone back to the dark side of the monthly cinema pass expense. Back ↑
** Don’t worry part 2 – it’s Orange Wednesday two for one deal 😉 Back ↑

 

 

ecothriftyliving.com

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I’ve Joined The Yakezie Challenge!

Jan06
by TFS on January 6, 2014 at 11:01 pm
Posted In: Blogging

Some of you may have noticed the nice logo down on the bottom right hand side of the blog that has been floating there unassumingly for the last week or so. Well that is there to signify that yes, I’ve joined the Yakezie Challenge!

I am almost certain everyone reading this blog right now already knows what Yakezie is, but if not, it is an excellent network of personal finance blogs. Go to Yakezie.com to find out more.

The Challenge

The challenge is all about Alexa rankings, which is ranking system that ranks websites on exciting statistics such as visitor numbers, back links, and user engagement. The idea is to lower your Alexa ranking, seeing as lower is better; Google is numero uno for example (*shock!*).

When I joined the challenge my rank was around the 600,000 mark so I’ve got a long way to go before I’ll be keeping Larry Page and co up at night, but fortunately for me the target is a much more modest 200,000. I’m currently at 524,000 so going in the right direction!

Thanks for reading and hopefully with your continued support I can beat the challenge!

7 Comments

Mega-Detox Challenge

Jan03
by TFS on January 3, 2014 at 2:24 pm
Posted In: TFS Challenge
Mega-Detox Challenge

Proof of my first run. Don’t worry, I won’t be posting one a day! That would be a major yaaawn!

To view the Challenge Log click here

To check out the Challenge Hub with details of all previous challenges click here

Well, it is January isn’t it? That means that everyone and their dog is either going on a diet, giving up alcohol, quiting smoking, or any other number of self imposed detoxing measures from those sinful and previously cherished substances and activities.

Now I have nothing inherently against making resolutions but I do tend to agree with Johnny Moneyseed when he wrote in his recent article that most of time they are doomed to failure, mainly due to the vagueness of the goal, lack of conviction, and improper planning. He also mentioned about doing too much at one time, which kind of spurred me onto doing something completely counter-intuitive and try to do 5 common resolutions all at the same time, albeit only for 30 days.

I’ve already laid out my aspirations for the year and I’m hoping most of them are more “revolutionary” than “resolutionary”, but in the spirit of self-experimentation have been lightly sprinkled with a few one month long challenges.

In the spirit of the official detoxing month that is January then, here are the rules of the mega-detox challenge:

  • Run one mile per day
  • Do 50 press ups per day
  • Do 50 burpees per day
  • No alcohol drinking allowed
  • No caffeine drinking allowed

Each item on it’s own is not really too hard in my opinion, especially just for a month, and especially when you see what other nutters hardcore mofos out there are up too. But I think all five at once comprise a pretty decent challenge.

I type this having just completed day one and I’m hoping this will have been the toughest day, as the old advice goes: starting something is often the hardest part. But we shall see!

The only other thought I’ve had on the challenge is that I’ve never given up caffeine for more than about 24 hours since I was about 10. I’ve been through various periods of not bothering with alcohol since reaching “adult” age, maybe even a whole month before (wow!) without really trying, but at least one cup of tea a day, everyday, has been a part of my life for so long it is a deeply ingrained habit. I don’t think I will struggle with this as such, but it will be interesting to see if I notice any effects, good or bad. And saying that, I nearly absent mindedly made a cup of tea this morning, so maybe it is something I will have to watch out for!

Anyone else got any crazy January challenges then? Anyone up for joining me?

And as always, suggestions for more challenges are more than welcome 🙂

Good luck with whatever your challenges/goals/aspirations for 2014 are.

TFS.x

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Some more challenges to follow and inspire:

The Great Detox Challenge For 2014 @ The Simple Economist

Are you ready for a challenge? @ 1500 Days to Freedom

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