How did Re-use & Recycle Tenner Week go?

Re-use & Recycle Tenner Week Challenge update plastic glass recycling bin

Last week was this site’s first Re-use & Recycle Tenner Week budgeting challenge. It’s time to look back and to evaluate how it all went, and find out what can be learned from the various activities and outcomes.

I chose a £25 per person budget for my week, also known as the ‘all in’ budget option. Here’s how I got on with it.

Day-by-day Tenner Week diary & budget progress

Here’s a quick breakdown of everything I got up to during the challenge, including my spending diary.

Sunday Stocktake (optional)

I had a quick look around the house to look for mending and DIY equipment and supplies, council recycling leaflets to refresh my memory, and food and drink supplies. I mostly concentrated on looking at our food basics.

It became very clear that we only had two small crusts of bread in stock, so I made a quick no-knead dough with rosemary and put it in the fridge overnight to bake on Monday. Honestly, I just didn’t want to have to go to the shops on the first day of the challenge.

Monday: Tackling food waste

I did a full stocktake of food, and there were enough staples in the store cupboard and freezer to keep us ticking over for a week. The fridge and fruit bowl were low on supplies, and there was some kale about to go off in the vegetable drawer.

The next step was to make a menu, prioritising using up older ingredients. I wrote out a minimal shopping list at the same time, with as few items on it as possible – but it was obvious we were going to quickly run out of milk and a few other everyday ingredients, including potatoes and tinned tomatoes.

Went to a drop-in yoga lesson too, which counts because it wasn’t a prepaid block booking. That left me £10 down out of my £25 budget, but I’m more bendy than spendy so it was worth every penny.

Lunch was vegetable soup, and freshly baked homemade bread. Some of the bread was sliced and frozen for later in the week. Dinner was gnocchi with red onion, spinach, kale and cheese.

Total spent today: £10.00.

Tuesday: Fix something day

Today’s activity for me was sewing a button back onto a cardigan. It’s one of those goes-with-everything woollies, and the loose button meant it wasn’t being used. I got the sewing kit out in front of the TV in the evening, and it was done in no time at all.

It was also time to go to the supermarket because we were running low on a few staples, and I was planning to batch cook something in the evening that I wanted some extra ingredients for. My share of the groceries was £3.74 and it included milk, a tin of chopped tomatoes, a big bag of spuds, some cheese and a red pepper.

Lunch was tuna pâté on toasted homemade bread. Dinner was the three-bean chilli recipe from The Green Roasting tin, but I substituted a cubed sweet potato to make up some volume because we only had half the mushrooms needed for the recipe. Still tasted great though.

Spent today: £3.74
Running total: £13.74

Wednesday: Easy reach recycling

There was a very inauspicious start to the day, when a Vinted seller got back to me a week after I’d made them an offer – not ideal for the budget. It had been so long I’d thought they’d decided to ignore it, but I honoured the deal and it set me back £4.45 including insurance and postage.

The easy reach recycling was very interesting, and it looks as though most of the supermarkets around here have increased the variety of materials that they recycle since the last time I checked.

I also wanted to find out how to recycle the corks we’ve been saving up, and around here you can either send them off to the Eden Project via a wine merchant or chop them up and compost them yourself.

Lunch was bagels. Dinner was baked fish from the freezer, home made potato wedges and lots of vegetables (can’t have things going off in the vegetable drawer when you’re making yourself publicly accountable, eh?)

Spent today: £4.45
Running total: £18.19

Re-use & recycle Tenner Week challenge care for the planet prevent food waste

Thursday: Rent, borrow, lend, swap

Borrowed magazines and newspapers via our local library app before I’d even got out of bed. I also looked into renting a pressure washer via FatLlama and it turns out there’s one available at the end of our street, prices from £6 per day.

Food waste: had to put a sad bendy stick of celery and some soggy rocket into the food waste bin (yes, should have had a salad to finish it a couple of days ago, I know, I know.) Recycling: Took a water filter cartridge to the supermarket to recycle it, which to some extent was an excuse for a walk because there was some lovely sunshine in the morning.

Lunch was carrot and coriander soup and homemade bread. Dinner was cheesy nachos, homemade salsa, Greek yogurt instead of sour cream, and a bowl of Tuesday’s vegetable chilli. We were also going to have guacamole but when I cut open the avocado it had streaks of dry mould all the way though it, so that went in the food waste bin too. The rest of the food made up for it though.

Spent today: £0.00
Running total: £18.19

Friday: Repurpose something

We have a pressed glass bowl at the back of a cupboard that we use for trifle, and I moved it so it gets used more often. It’s sturdy enough to use as a salad bowl, especially when you’re having a proper meal at the table.

Lunch was defrosted bagels. Dinner was seafood from the freezer, homemade bread and a salad (in the aforementioned glass bowl.) We also had a half bottle of wine with it that didn’t get opened at Christmas. Dessert was tinned peaches in juice, as we were running out of fresh fruit.

Spent today: £0.00
Running total: £18.19

Saturday: Tackling clothing waste

There was more time at the weekend, so I went through my seasonal clothes and shoes to see what needed to stay, go, be altered, get replaced, and so on. There was an old t-shirt, a jacket and a pair of ancient trousers that I put to one side for the charity shop. Nothing else needed to be mended or ironed, so I think that’s a win.

The other thing I did was to make sure everything was folded neatly, or hung up in the correct place. This makes it easier to keep clothes in rotation, and to see what’s readily available if you’re in a hurry.

I found a longsleeve thermal top that I’ve been looking for for weeks – I’d accidentally put it away under some jumpers, so that’s back where it belongs and ready for the next cold snap. Sadly I didn’t find anything to sell, but that’s the way it goes sometimes, isn’t it?

Lunch was fish finger sandwiches with sliced gherkins and little gem lettuce. Dinner was spring rolls from the freezer, sweet chilli sauce for dipping, stir fried vegetables, and steamed rice with fresh coriander. It was delicious on a cold night.

Spent today: £0.00
Running total: £18.19

Sunday: Get it out of the house!

I cut up some wine corks with garden secateurs and got them into the garden waste recycling, and took the old clothes to the charity drop off point. Nice to not have it hanging around indoors and taking up space.

We also had a nice long walk around a park in the sunshine, and a trip to a nearby patisserie. I spent £6.10 out of the remaining £6.81 in the budget on coffee and cake.

Lunch was french onion soup. Dinner was baked camembert with rosemary, salad, cornichons and baguette. Not your traditional Sunday roast but we enjoyed it a lot.

Spent today: £6.10
GRAND TOTAL: £24.29

Re-use & Recycle Tenner Week Challenge daily activities green energy glass

My Re-use & Recyle Tenner Week budget

There was 71p left in my budget by the end of the week, so that’s a success! We made it. I also managed to have three No Spend days.

On reflection, if I was on a tighter budget then I wouldn’t have been able to do an exercise class. I’d have probably done some different exercise at home instead, or gone for a longer walk at the weekend though, just to keep active for free.

The groceries bill was fairly reasonable, and we managed to have healthy, tasty meals without spending too much money or cooking for hours and hours. Once again, we ate better during Tenner Week because a little more planning had gone into the menu to cover all the bases.

No regrets about going out for coffee and cake because it was lovely and sociable, and that place does great cake.

My big mistake of the week was forgetting that I’d made someone an offer on Vinted, and they came back to me really late about it. I’ll keep that in mind next time, although I also wish that app had an option to cancel an offer as well.

The Re-Use & Recycle Tenner Week activities

I loved having something new to try every day during the last week of January. It was especially good to find out about improvements in the local recycling facilities, and to see how the sharing economy is getting better in many areas.

It was also good to get that kick up the backside to have a tidy up, reorganise, declutter, and a mending session. Small things that can easily be overlooked or ignored otherwise, but it does all add up over time.

The season helps a lot. It’s especially easy to stay at home and save money in January because so many other people are doing the same thing. It’s cold, it’s dark, it’s rainy or frosty. There’s usually plenty to watch in terms of film and TV shows, and you can have soups, stews and chillis to your heart’s content.

There’s less social pressure because lots of people are doing dry January, or have started a new exercise routine, or they’re not going out for meals because they’re on some sort of diet. There are fewer trips to the pub, or the coffee shop, or dinner invitations. It’s not so easy in other months.

Would I do this particular Tenner Week budgeting challenge again? Yes, I think I would. Good for the budget, good for the environment too.

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Over to you. Did you follow along with this Re-use & Recycle Tenner Week? How did you get on?

How did Re-use & Recycle Tenner Week go?