Friday Favourites 12th - 18th March 2016.
Another Friday is upon us and you know what that means?!
FRIDAY FAVOURITES! -insert celebration emoji here-
This week has been hectic AGAIN, I don't even know what I'm doing with my time except I have a To Do list the length of my arm and nothing ever seems to be crossed off....
(Also I've spent a lot of time going on scenic walks so that's always nice)
1. Joss' Birthday.
I mentioned in last week's Friday Favourites (read here) that is was my boyfriends birthday and we had a sunny weekend full of walks with the dogs, bad food, presents and rugby. So we might have lost against England but he had his first night out since he started his job last year and I got to be designated driver and take them home when they've been giving me lifts since we were 17 - always nice to return a favour!
2. Cosmeston Lakes.
I've mentioned it before in Favourites but this little slice of heaven is about 25 minutes down the road and somewhere I have been going since I was a baby. This week the weather has been so lovely it's made me want to get out and spend all my time in the sun and I even managed to ditch the winter coat and wear my bright red summer mac and sunglasses. In 4 days I went to Cosmeston twice; once with my boyfriend and dog who was scared of the swans (dog not boyfriend) and then on Monday with my mum and my niece who shouted at the swans and clapped her hands at the seagulls (baby not mother). If you're down the South Wales area and you have an hour to kill definitely end up here, if nothing else your camera roll will thank you for it.
3. Saving $$$.
The biggest struggle I have had since I left university and moved home and started my own business has been my savings. I saved HARD whilst I was uni and saved over a grand, something I was massively proud of but sadly I came out of graduation and had to buy an iMac swiftly followed by a car and whadda ya know, my savings were gone and I still owe my parents and student loans. I really struggle with not having savings, with not having enough money TO save and not having something there just in case I need it. Disposable income I have not. SO. Moral of the story, I have started saving again and it might not be a lot but it is something, something manageable and hopefully something that will amount to a lodda cold hard cash. This week I started the 365 days saving challenge (something I read about on Bethany Georgina's blog) where you save every day for a year, upping your savings by a penny a day. Ideally you need to start on the 1st January and you save 1p, the next day you save 2p, the third day 3p etc etc etc so on the last day of the year you save £3.65 and by the end you should have collected best part of 700 quid! I also finally hit 5000 points on YouGov (another tip I read on Bethany's blog, she really is the queen of bargains and money savvy blogs). YouGov is a polling site that sends you surveys to complete via email and awards you points for each one you complete. Long story short if you stack up your points, when you reach 5000 you can cash it in for 50 quid cash, a goal which I achieved on Wednesday. So yeah, 50 quid for filling in some surveys online ain't too shabby.
4. Happy Valley.
So it'll come to no surprise to those of you who watch Happy Valley that the finale made it to my favourites list. I should think if you have watched it from the beginning, you could all look back on the last week and list it as one of your favourites too. I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it but it was a cracking tense ending to another amazing series and Sarah Lancashire deserves every award next seasons. And if nothing else, it hinted toward a series 3 so we have that to hopefully look forward to next year maybe.
5. One Year Birthday!!
Yesterday my little Instagram account for my business had it's one year birthday!! It was by absolute coincidence that I even realised yesterday morning so I had a little celebration by being really gross and asking people to follow me -insert sick face emoji here- So in one measly year I posted 650 times (and counting) and I have 220 followers which is pretty sweet. On Sunday it was actually mark a year from when I posted my first ever post on this blog but seen as I didn't regularly write until about August/September I won't be celebrating that milestone just yet!
Have a lovely weekend all- enjoy the 6 Nations Super Saturday if you're watching and keep everything crossed that the nice weather continues!