Weekday fuel

by Lucy

I love cycling to work. If I managed it 5 days a week I would be riding for 7.5 hours. I think I average about 5 hours a week. What I am sure of is that the more I cycle, the more I eat!

Over the last few months I’ve managed to find my perfect cycling workday diet. I am not perfect at sticking to it, but I know that when I do, I feel better.

Breakfast: I have tried eating breakfast before I leave the house, but I can’t do it. My body is not relaxed enough to digest it while cycling. It works better for me to set off early and have breakfast in the office before work (or in the summer I often stop by a bench on my route and eat it in the great outdoors).

My perfect breakfast: One home-made oaty cocoa flapjack, 2 kiwi fruits and a small mango or large banana, all chopped up in a bowl, maybe with some nuts. A few variations have included summer fruits, and fruit salad made by Brian’s son at school!

Mid Morning Snack: A banana or apple and some almonds or walnuts

Lunch: The aim is to bring my own lunch to work every day. In the past I was much more disorganised and would end up eating things like sausage rolls and pasties and chips.  I’ve realised now that it’s better for me to spend a bit more and get something healthy like a falafel wrap or soup if I haven’t managed to bring anything, as long as it’s not more than a couple of times a month. When I bring my own lunch to work, it is usually home-made hummus (garlic-free) sandwiches, or last night’s leftovers.

(I would usually have wholemeal bread, this must have been quite a disorganised day!)

After that I have my second flapjack of the day.

Mid-afternoon (pre-cycling home) snack: Banana and walnuts or almonds. I sometimes forget to eat my afternoon snack, and then feel very hungry on the way home!

Great things about these foods:

• They are pretty healthy for the calories they provide
• There is hardly any packaging but things are easy to transport. I carry a LOT of Tupperware around every day!
• Very low cost compared to more processed stuff

(On top of this I sometimes have other treats such as office birthday cakes, a pub lunch  and the occasional ice cream in the summertime! But these don’t really help in fuelling my cycle rides…)

More of What Matters: Spending Review Month 10

Welcome to the end of our Money Month 10, which we’re celebrating because we’ve saved more this month than in any other. Having some time off over the Christmas & New Year period meant we enjoyed pottering about and not spending much money, plus the fact we had edible, watchable and wearable Christmas gifts to enjoy!

Here’s where our money went this month:

Food and drink: An average £14.09 per day, including some Christmas food and a New Years Day takeaway
Travel: A few fills of petrol
Coal: 4 bags
Toiletries: 1 deodorant, 2 soaps (we have reduced the range of things we use, and seem to now be buying hardly anything)
Domestic: 1 glass tumbler, 3 reindeer design plates (all in January sales), kitchen scale to replace one which Lucy dropped, laundry liquid, a lunchbox
Health / dental: A few of the usual items
Clothes: A winter coat, tights, socks
Luxuries: 1 song download
Gifts: A few Christmas bits and pieces

We’ve been settling into more simple and frugal habits and ideas over the winter, such as:

• Taking packed lunches and snacks to work. There’s not been many days where either of us has bought something on the day
• Eating lots of fruit and vegetables so we have less room for the more expensive stuff
• Replacing bought pizzas with home-made toast pizza, as shown in the picture (with the day before’s veggie leftovers on the top). It’s toast topped with tomato puree, cheese, herbs and whatever else you fancy. We all prefer these, so that’s another convenience food eliminated…
• Using a prepaid discount season ticket for bus journeys
• Using up old toiletries and not automatically replacing them
• Enjoying free hobbies, indoor and outdoor: looking at wildlife and the moon & sky with binoculars, going to the library, and knitting with yarn that was already in the house
• Sticking to regular cycle maintenance routines, to reduce the chance of needing professional help to keep it in good working order

The coming month should see us having our roof fixed up, which is one of the things we’ve been saving for, and will be a weight off our minds to get done.

Happy winter!

The Accidental Mobius Scarf

by Lucy

Here is my latest finished knitting project! I started this 2 years ago, but because I keep my knitting in a cupboard, I often forget about it and that’s why things take so long.

The idea for this project was that I wanted a scarf which could not blow off my neck while cycling. This is really a snood, and it was made on circular needles with one ball of rainbow wool.

At some point in the knitting, I must have twisted the whole thing round and through itself, because one day I realised it was curling over as I was knitting. What I’ve accidentally created is a Mobius or infinity scarf – not what I intended, but I think it makes it more interesting!

I enjoyed making something so bright and colourful, and when I remembered to take it out with me, I did quite a lot of the knitting outdoors. There’s something very satisfying about that!

Now I’m using it, it does the job perfectly, keeping me cosy and warm on my winter commutes. I’ve made enough scarves now, so my next project will be some fingerless gloves – I’ll try not to take two years to finish those….

 

Feeling lighter by casting off unwanted stuff…

..that is the aim of de-cluttering, which is something we’ve been missing since our big years of de-cluttering in 2012-13. We tried to write down everything we got rid of over many months, hoping to achieve the one item per day target of the 365 Less Things blog, and in the end we got rid of more than that.

It couldn’t go on forever, because at the same time we were reducing our spending habits and bringing less new items into the house, and so for the last couple of years we have not been able to find much to get rid of.

Over recent weeks, we caught up with lots of other blogs such as What I Shed Today, and Be More with Less, and reminded ourselves that it isn’t only material items which you can cast off for a simpler, lighter life. It can also be digital clutter such as not-very-good photos and music, and perhaps most importantly, it can be mental or lifestyle clutter – ideas, thoughts and burdens that weigh you down.

A look around the house also revealed that there are now some more materials items we can get rid of.

So: Its time for a new de-cluttering mission. In the last week we’ve got rid of some more books, clothes and shoes, and deleted lots of bad songs: Lucy is listening to our digital record collection A-Z doing quality control. We’re currently on C. Brian is trying to cast off his sugar cravings too. Every day we can ask ourselves: what can I cast off today?

These are not really new year’s resolutions, as the timing was coincidental. We are always trying to simplify our lives and are these are just our latest pledges.

Finally, a further thing was reduced this week: Lucy’s hair, during the first (and very successful) home haircut by Brian! Evidence below: