Well, I was not on the tail end of the cold if my blocked sinuses are anything to go by, and I'm not loving the addition of a pounding headache to the mix. I think I might be quite dehydrated which is probably making everything feel worse, so I am drinking as much water as I can right now.
Food wasn't good this past week, despite my plans to keep it confined to that weekend. The combination of being sick still and having to visit the dentist (one emergency appointment when the back of my tooth came off, one appointment after that to fix cavities seen in appointment 1), with more appointments in the works (root canal on my front tooth, impacted wisdom tooth to remove, tooth root to be taken out), meant that I fell back in to old habits of taking the easy way. That is, eating out for my meals. At weigh in I was a kilo up, whether it's all real weight or some water I'm not sure but we'll see.
The good news is I cleaned my apartment yesterday, I'd gone off my cleaning calendar when I got sick too, either everything works or everything slips, so I'm feeling much better mentally for doing that. I also got paid yesterday, which has me breathing a sigh of relief. I'm using 'you need a budget' to keep track of my money, so I plugged it straight into there along with what I expect to spend this month and where I want the money to go. Is it incredibly geeky of me to be excited about that this? I love this kind of thing. I'm hoping this will help me save what I want to go back to school when I finish in China.
I have my lunch made and packed, may this be the start of a controlled week.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Ups and Downs
Posted by The Fat Foreigner at 12:47 PM 0 comments Links to this post
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Wobble
When things don't go great I have a way of disappearing. Sometimes I want to wait until I've got a few 'good' days under my belt again so that I can say 'hey, this happened but things are fine now' (but either I don't update or I don;t have a few good days), and sometimes I just fall into the abyss to turn up months later, sheepish and weighing 20lbs more. In the interest of not doing that it's probably better I come clean now. This weekend was not great for me (My 'weekend' being yesterday and today).
Posted by The Fat Foreigner at 11:18 PM 0 comments Links to this post
Friday, March 15, 2013
Blah
This week is definitely turning out harder than last. I went and paid my Internet/cable bill on Wednesday, it came to 2300 (for the year) which means I am now totally skint. I have about 200 kwai in my purse for the rest of the week (£20/$32, shouldn't be a problem), but then only 1,000 (£100/$160) until pay day (somewhere around the 28th). This is China, so it's doable, but it's half what I had planned so I will have to watch things carefully. In anticipation of this I made a big pot of chilli yesterday and froze it into individual portions. I kept some unfrozen for lunch today/tomorrow, but if all else fails it means that I have that ready and waiting.
Posted by The Fat Foreigner at 11:57 AM 0 comments Links to this post
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Going well
Well, I made it through the week sticking to my budget. It was actually fine, and I underspent which was nice. I sent home all my money but what was in my budget, so it's important I stick to it. It's a little unfortunate that I realised right after sending it that I actually have to pay my internet and cable for the next year tomorrow, but I had completely forgotten about it! I think it's about 2,000 kwai, so I'm hoping I can still pay it and manage on what is left in my account, but things will be pretty lean at the end of this month! I figure if it gets terrible I can also get some money out of my home bank (my card from the UK is accepted in most cash machines here) but I'd rather not if I can manage at all!
A fortunate side affect of cutting down the money I spend is that I've been sticking to eating mostly home food, which means I lost 5lbs last week. That's great for me! I've joined a weight loss challenge on SparkPeople that ends right before my birthday, so I'm going to try and keep it up without overwhelming myself.
Gotta go, I'm late!
Posted by The Fat Foreigner at 1:09 PM 0 comments Links to this post
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Plans
(I've had this sitting in Drafts for a while, sorry)
Turns out when using an automatic, driving is kind of awesome. I had a small heart attack when I merged on to the motorway for the first time, and then again when I had to do my first big island solo, but after that things were sort of great. Every time I overtook a lorry I started humming the Indiana Jones theme tune. Not having to worry about stalling the car was really nice.
I can't believe I'm actually saying this, but I've had to sit and think about my 5 year plan just recently (which makes me feel about 50 years old) I want to go back to university and become qualified as a teacher. That means (somehow) getting on a program (my biggest worry) and then supporting myself through the time I'm studying. This in turn means saving enough money in my time left in China to do all this.
(end of draft)
I'm trying to look upon the budgeting as an opportunity. In order to make my budget I'm going to be doing a few things, and those things usually directly correlate with me losing weight, so everything should hopefully start to fall into place. I want to save at least 5000 kwai (£500/$800) a month, something that's actually completely doable in China. In order to do this I've been looking at my basic income and come up with this:
Salary: 12,450 (after tax)
-5,000 savings
-3,000 rent and bills/month
4,450
4,450/31 (max days in a month) x7 (days in a week) = 1004.84
I'm rounding that down to an even 1,000 (£100, $160) a week for simplicity's sake.
Every Monday I go to the ATM and get the thousand out, then I live from the cash in my wallet until the next Monday. This helps me keep track of what I'm spending and what I have left. No visits to the ATM in-between or paying for stuff on cards! I walk to work so commuting coasts aren't an issue, but anything else (taxis, groceries, any eating out/fun things I do) will come out of that money. If I use up that money by Wednesday, I'd better be ready to scavenge meals from what's left in my apartment and freezer until next Monday.
When Monday arrives, if I have any money left from the week, I will top it up to 1,000 so that I'm starting with the same all the time. Anything I don't spend can be extra savings.
Even though I budget for my rent/bills every month, I only pay them every three months (in a lump sum, very common here in China). I just did my most recent payment this week, so after every rent payment from now I will go to the bank and send what savings I have home. I find this a lot easier than having the money in China, as once it's in my home savings account the money doesn't exist for me in the same way it does in my Chinese bank. I'm much more likely to chip away at it here.
I'm at the end of the first week now and things went great this week. A big part of keeping to this is not eating out at work so much! It's all we go right now and it siphons away your money fast! Not to mention that eating at MacDonald's every day loses its appeal rather quickly and is really bad for you. I brought meals in 4 days this week and ate out of the 5th, which is about where I want to be. I'm not banning it, I just want it to be an occasional thing instead of everyday. This, in turn, is meaning I finally lost a little weight this week (1.5kg) so I'm hoping to keep this going.
There aren't 31 days every month, and 3,000 is the top estimate fore my bills, so it's entirely possible I will save more than I am planning. Also, 1,000 a week is quite generous if I keep to my plan of making my own food. I'm going to keep on the 1,000 a week for the next month while I try things out, and if I find I have quite a bit left over at the end of the week (as I did this week), I may lower my weekly budget and try and save 7,000 a month instead. I don't want to budget myself into the ground though, to the point where I feel like I can't do anything so I say forget it and blow a load of money on something, so the next month should show me what a comfortable compromise is.
Sorry if this post got a bit boring! I'm trying to keep things laid out and straight in my head to keep it going.
Posted by The Fat Foreigner at 7:38 AM 0 comments Links to this post