The Bugle Boy's Alarm Clock

The Year of Thrift

Since everyone seems to have been affected by this credit crunch (my credit has been crunching for years) I thought I'd share some ideas on how to save pennies. Some, I appreciate, are sheer folly (others down right dangerous) but they may just save you a packet.

1) walk to work (doesn't apply if it's over five miles and involves crossing a six lane motorway)

2) take a pack lunch (it's cheaper and safer - the spotty guy from Subway didn't sneeze in it)

3) leave your purse at home (it's hard to pick up lunch hour bargains when all you have for currency is a five year old packet of Polos and handbag lint)

4) share a bath (great with your partner/crap if you get the end with the taps and/or dripping showerhead - fun with kids/not so much fun if they poo)

5) visit the library (even if they have to order in the book you want it will only cost you twenty pence - it's also quiet if you're hungover and not full of as many tramps as you'd think)

6) bank your pennies (raking around down that back of the sofa may not be your idea of a good time but a good coin scrounge can sometimes reap £80 in spare change)

7) throw a clothes swapping party (this doesn't work if all your friends are size ten and you're . . . well . . . NOT - but fab if you're bored with your accessories and you have richer friends who shop at nicer stores)

8) walk to the supermarket (you can only carry so much -although I have tested the limits of human endurance - so you spend less)

9) eat out (not false economy if the 'out' happens to be parents house and you called 'to see how they are' around dinner time - can also apply to parents-in-law)

10) colour your own hair (do the math - Saks = £40 vs Boots = £4.99 + free shapers bar with the advantage card points - do not sue me if it goes green, you chose the colour not me)

Motivated?

It has begun.

I have been attending a spinning class at my local leisure centre for a few months now but as places are limited you have to book in advance. I haven't been able to book a place for weeks. It seems that everyone and their Aunt Fanny has decided that this is the year to get their flabby arses to the gym and try something new to shift those excess Christmas pounds.

And every single one of them chooses MY class.

There is hope that after a few sessions they will give up (some will give up after the first session in the saddle) and I'll be able to get my usual slot back. Until such time I will be running in the fresh (is slightly damp and chilly) air and may have to blow the dust off some of my old fitness DVDs.

I should probably warn the neighbours to glue down their ornaments too.

Be Resolute

May 2009 bring you more of what you hope for and less of what you expect (I hope we win the lottery, I expect even if we do, it will be a tenner, divided between a syndicate of 35) Bah, old cynic that I am.

You'd think, with the change in attitude even I can hear in my own voice over the last few years (marriage, a daughter and turning thirty may have mellowed me - the jury is still out on that one) that I would have something positive to say about New Year and, in particular, New Year's resolutions.

Well I don't.

I know some folk see it as a new start, a reason to get off their arses and do something about those nagging things that have been left to fester all last year (some would say that's why men have wives, so the nagging to do these things can continue throughout the year) but we all know it's a crock of shit.

We promise to do things, to be things, to begin things and to finish things, to be people that we are not. The promises we make to ourselves and our loved ones never change. We always want to lose weight, to shape up, to quit smoking, to quit drinking, to solve our money worries, to make a difference, to make our home/work balance actually balance and to be an all round better and more organised person.

And we want instant results and it to be easy as falling off a log. Who are we trying to kid?

Funny isn't it, the way we all eat like pigs at a trough until the 31st December and suddenly on the 1st January we no longer have Jaffa Cakes for breakfast, eat crisps in secret in the car going to work or class exercise as the dash to the Spa in the rain for late night chocolate.

Suddenly our bodies are temples that will only have organic, wholesome nourishment that comes in miniscule portions and costs more than drugs. We attend the high priced gym every night after work, no matter what. And we make lists of things to do, people to call, accomplishments to work toward.

And we fail at them all.

I am not trying to break the resolve of anyone who has made one of these life changing promises and has the determination to achieve it. Let's face it, if you have the motivation to achieve something you want in your life (or out of it as the case may be) you won't wait around for January next year to start on the path will you? You'll decide to get right on it, no matter what time of year, and power to your elbow.

You are the minority.

The rest of us will break our promises, stumble at the first or second hurdle and go back to our old ways with the reassurance to our egos that at least we tried. There's always next year.

I am not imune to the lure of the resolution, I have made the same ones every year for a decade: to be thinner, fitter, richer and generally better off, and I have accomplished, to varying degrees, all of those. Not all the paths began on the 1st of January, not all the paths have reached their destinations yet, but the determination with which I have approached them has never faltered and never will.

So rather than making promises that I'll have disregarded by February, I'd like to publish my accomplishment list for 2008.

Last year I:

1) lost 50lbs in weight

2) got back into running

3) started writing a new book

4) taught my daughter to swim

5) made a dozen new friends

6) lent my voice to a trailer

7) started learning sign language

8) got in touch with some old friends

9) discovered quorn

10) kept a blog