From Defeated to Determined

 I'm amazed at what a rest and a good night's sleep do for my mental health.

This morning I woke up feeling refreshed; my allergies are calmer, I feel a lot better mentally, not so down, so I determined not to be brought down by our money situation. I can't make any more, even though I want to; what I can do is cut waste to a minimum and find even more ways to save money.

I have subscriptions to Hulu and Netflix; one has to go. Netflix is the cheap subscription with ads, which don't bother me at all. Hulu, however, is more expensive, so that will have to be cancelled; I can always change back later. That will save just over 1,000 yen a month. 

Other things that are wasting money are buying drinks and something for dinner when we go to the other city to teach. 

On Tuesday, Christopher comes with Mikey and me; he makes sandwiches for us. But we still stop at a convenience store to buy drinks. I always buy water; I should get a flask and bring water from home. On Wednesday, when it's just Mikey and me, we buy something to eat, but I think that I should make some sandwiches or rice balls. I noticed that over the two days I spent about 4,000 yen; multiplying that by 4 weeks makes 16,000 yen, about £75, far too much to waste like that. Also, there isn't much choice in the stores and no real healthy choices!

Another area I'm looking at making changes in is our food shopping. I need to go back to making a week's menu and sticking to it. It's so easy to buy "bargains" but then not use them, therefore wasting money. A few times in the past I've planned out a week's menu and made shopping lists. I remember being able to save over 3,000 yen a week, about £15.

Just implementing those few changes could save me a lot of money. Takes discipline, though. But that's good for me. I need to stop being so lazy and make the effort!

I hope this determination lasts!

Yesterday, even though I rested a lot, I did make an effort to put away my very heavy winter clothes and put out my summer clothes.

A couple of things surprised me; one was that it didn't take as long as I thought it would, about 40 minutes altogether. Another nice surprise was that some clothes that I thought didn't fit actually fit now! I have two new outfits without shopping!

Today I cleaned out the fridge while making lunch. I wanted to roast some broccoli and potatoes; I parboil them first, otherwise they don't seem to cook through properly. While they were cooking, I decided to clean part of the fridge. I like cleaning the fridge when it's hot!

Today's lunch!

Hamburgers, roasted potatoes and broccoli, salad and miso soup. I did plan to make rice, but I forgot to turn on the rice cooker! Never mind! I'll use the rice for this evening's meal!