Ben told us to challenge ourselves this year and January has already started off with challenges.

The first challenge of the year was the pound a day challenge for save the children, Rich and I took part along with fellow members up and down the country.   Basically the challenge was to live on £7 each for the week. Being frugal I rose to the challenge, downloaded the Asda app and got a good spreadsheet going for our shopping list. The meals for the week consisted of porridge for breakfast, jam sandwiches for a packed lunch, and evening meals of bangers and mash, beans on toast, veg and pasta, veg and rice with desserts of pancakes and rice.


Tracy & Rich's £1 a day shop

I can honestly say I wasn't hungry throughout the week, but my body felt tired and it knew it was getting a different quality of food. The hardest part for me was the lack of meat and fresh fruit and veg. I can certainly say that the challenge has opened my eyes and I think my buying habits have changed since.

The second challenge in January for me was doing a presentation for our open mic session. I decide to speak as I really want to develop my public speaking skills.  I chose a topic I knew lots about- twitter. I am a twitter addict.

I prepared some slides with some rough notes and felt this was the only preparation I was doing. Therefore my biggest challenge was speaking without a script and using powerpoint for the first time in a presentation.

From the feedback I got, I think it went ok, I wasn't a nervous as I thought I would be and I certainly didn't run out of things to say! I enjoyed it that much that I am considering doing a trainer course to improve my skills.

So what challenges will the rest of the year bring…

Tracy Anderson
Deputy President