Errand day

Some of the organisational websites like Flylady recommend that one has an "errand day" on which the shopping, library visits, trips to the post office and bank, etc are all accomplished at the same time.

This is what Thursdays are becoming here, but not through any grand plan to follow a good idea - just because it happens like that!  The YFG and her friend need a lift on a Thursday from one town to the other for their piano lesson at 4pm - they have half an hour each and then the friend's mum brings them home at 5pm.  This leaves me free and in town at 4pm - perfect for doing things!  The YFG is being entered for her Grade 1 exam this term, so I had that to pay for (£33.50!!) as well as the lesson.

So yesterday, I went armed with a list.  I bought a bag of Picasso potatoes (25kg for £5.50), picked up my glasses from the optician where a new side had been fitted because they broke (£15), collected the YFG's ballet leotard from the dancewear shop (£17.50), nipped into the library and changed my books, dashed in to the Co-op for some pitta breads for myself and then into Lidl's for food/cat food, and returned home at about 5.20pm after calling in at the shop that does embroidery on sportswear where the gym club had ordered some hoodies which were ready for collection.

Now, convenient and economical as all this was to do on one day, the effect on the bank balance was dramatic - I spent £100+  in less than an hour!!  Thank goodness that the rest of the week had so far been made up entirely of No Spend Days, and I expect I shall have more this week.

The other thing to say about this is that I love the way we live close to a town like this which is still vibrant and humming with activity - there aren't the greengrocers, but there are butchers, bakers, and candlestickmakers (well, a jolly good hardware/ironmonger shop!) and lots of individual shops as well as smaller chainstores like Heron Foods and Boyes, Holland & Barrett, Boots, M&Co, several independent clothes stores, including a bridalwear shop which does the most amazing window displays, and some gift shops as well as the usual banks, estate agents, and charity shops.  I did mourn the demise of a bookshop, and it wasn't for lack of my patronage that it closed as I was often in there!  Probably better for my bank balance that it did close, but nevertheless the town is slightly the worse off for it not being there any longer.

If I can't buy what I want between this town and the internet, I don't need it - and I hate "shopping" as a recreational activity so schlepping around a big shopping centre or a big city is totally out of my comfort zone!  I will make a trip into Cambridge to the shops once every year or two, but only then because I enjoy going to the Lakeland store for a look at the new products (and sometimes I succumb!), and being fitted properly at Bravissimo, which is always worth the effort!