I'VE FINISHED!!!!

So it's Thursday, and I have now officially my £10 a week charity challenge! It has been a very long 9 months...9 months of eating basic food, 9 months of not buying new clothes, 9 months of wearing leggings and a cardigan full of holes, 9 months of not being able to go out whenever I want, 9 months of not being able to spend what I want when I want, 9 months of sitting in my room watching movies online, 9 months of scrounging food of parents and friends, 9 months of desperately trying to raise as much money as possible for 4 very worthwhile charities, 9 months of explaining to people what I'm doing and why, 9 months of explaining the rules and how it works to people, 9 months of basically living in poverty...oh, and running 10k in boiling hot heat through the middle of London without my asthma inhaler.

Thank goodness it's all over!

BUT

I do still need donations! My target is £4000....so far I've raised almost £1800 including gift aid and offline donations. So please please donate to these amazing charities! You can choose just one or you can donate to more than one. Every little helps, for example, if everyone on my Facebook friends list donated just £1, we would raise almost £600. And then if everyone suggested it to their friends, and all of their friends donated just £1, we would raise thousands!

So just think, if everyone on my friends list donated £10, we would raise almost £6000!!!

The two charities with the least amount of donations are Home-Start Guildford and Lupus UK, so if you would like to donate please donate to these two first;

Home-Start Guildford Just Giving Page

Lupus UK Just Giving Page

So here is my very last budget list;

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Budget:

£2.99 - Pot of Raspberries - M&S

£3.50 - Salad - M&S

£1.50 - 2 chocolate bars - M&S

Total = £7.99

Final thoughts:

Would I ever live off a tenner a week again? Um...if I had a choice...No. It was hard. And there were times I felt like I really couldn't do it any more, but each time I felt that I just thought of the charities and why I was doing it.

Was it worth doing? Yes. It was rewarding and taught me the values of budgeting. I now know of ways to save money when shopping (using vouchers is a main one!), and I now understand when I want something compared to when I actually NEED something. So I won't be making the mistake I did in my first year of Uni where I spent money so needlessly.

Would I recommend it to others? Yes, but not for the same amount of time. It would be good to do for a month or two, just to teach people the values of budgeting and learning what you need compared to just what you want. 9 months was a huge challenge, and a very difficult one. It tests you and pushes you to your limits and is also unhealthy - I gained 3kg during the challenge because I was eating awful foods...I can't wait to buy loads of fresh fruit and veg!

So I guess this is the end. I will post more updates on how I'm finding it living off a 'normal' budget, and also how I'm getting on with the sponsorship donations. But for now, I'm off to buy some new leggings and a new cardigan so I no longer look like a tramp. Toodles x