Archive | Plans&Goals

Our big news!

By Rasa Pelham on August 24, 2019 in Plans&Goals, Updates

Well well well, this has probably been our best kept secret (ok, longest kept secret) for over a year and a half! And the secret was (some of you may have guessed it, or may have been told) that we are opening a cafe here in Shortstown where we live! I am also back to blogging (sort of) as I promised myself back in March that I will have a break from it while I prepare for this venture. I think it’s like having a new baby, nothing can really prepare you for this. As I collected the keys yesterday, I am still overwhelmed with the things we need to get done even before starting the fit out works. There is a lot that needs doing. We are taking this property on as a completely bare shell as you can see from the pictures below. No windows, floor, plumbing, or electrical wiring. Eeek, but I think it will be worth it in the end!

Now for those who are reading this blog for the first time here is where you can read more about us (I updated our About us page just for you). Hope you will find it interesting ;-). Our plans as you can see here are basic, there is still many things to refine, like what food to serve, what hours to open, how many staff to employ and so much more. I expect I will do quite a few surveys involving those living locally very soon. Fun stuff is coming up ;-). Obviously if you have any suggestions already then please give us a shout! You may have plenty of questions right now, please do not hesitate to ask! For now I will answer the questions that people (who I told about the cafe already) tend to ask most.

When are you planning to open? Oh yeah! this is like the most important information I may have missed here. We are hoping to open sometime in January 2020.
What type of food will you serve? I have not figured this out yet, but I will be posting surveys to find out what the Shortstown likes to eat.(Shortbread?)
Shortstown has a lot of parents with little children, will it be kid friendly? Yes! We have young kids as well and I completely understand how hard is to have lunch with kids. We are planning on a separate area (on the upper side of the kitchen and toilet if you are looking at the floor plan above) which is going to be a kids corner with kid friendly seating.
What are the opening hours going to be? Still don’t know, will have to see what Shortstown needs. For now I am thinking to start with 8:30am-4:30pm. What do you think?
Are you still planning to continue with blogging? I think yes, but can’t promise. I imagine I will be pre occupied by cafe stuff, but for now I have few posts ideas and pictures that I would love to let out. So let’s see.

Hope you are as excited as we are :-)

Rasa xoxo

My 2019 goals

By Rasa Pelham on January 24, 2019 in Plans&Goals, Updates

I usually set my new year goals on New Years eve (or even before), but this time I waited… I was worried, because I was still not sure if the new venture is going to work out. What if it did not and then I would need to cross that goal off? I realised the unexpected often happens and even when you think all the goals you set are achievable, sometimes things just don’t work out in the end. I realised the simple truth that goals are there to guide you and keep you focused, not some commandments set in stone. So have you set your goals yet? I hope you are finding your 2019 planner very useful!

I have five goals this year, just like last year! However I can only share three of my goals. My first goal is to do with my new venture; I have been planning all last year, but can’t share it due to the fact it’s not signed off. My fifth goal is too personal to share. Here are the three goals I am sharing:

1. Upgrade Friendly Nettle website goal was on my mind for five years. In fact I just copied this over from last year’s bullet journal! Hopefully this is the year I achieve this.

2. Keep on gardening my goal is a follow up from my last years “Create child friendly garden” goal. I enjoyed gardening in the summer so much that I decided to keep on doing it this year!

3. Find a new personal style this goal is a totally new goal in my books. It’s born due to huge changes in my life (kids and loosing some weight) where my style just did not follow. This is why I thought I need to find a new one ;-).Hope I am not too late to say Happy New Year again!!!

Rasa xoxo

2019 planner + giveaway

By Rasa Pelham on December 7, 2018 in Organisation, Plans&Goals

After trying out bullet journaling I had and idea… to use this organisational system to create my own wall planner. And here it is!! Tam tam taram tam (intro music sounding)!! Hope you like it and I am looking forward to your feedback. But more about it later. Let me go through this wall planner so you can have a better understanding of it.

Like every year, I create my own planner that fits my needs, then following year I review it and make even better for the next year. Therefore 2019 planner does have a lot in common with the 2018 planner. The major difference is the fact that is organised like a book. And like any other book this planner starts with the index. Index page is is a very good page to come back to when you make different notes through the year and want to find it again later. I will show you how this works in just a moment.But first I would like to talk about sweet nothings about the Year Goals page. This is my favourite part of the whole calendar! Identifying annual goals really helps me to achieve big dreams and stay on track with my bigger plans. I urge you my friends to set your dreams/goals on paper and review your set out tasks once in the while through the year. Tip: Don’t overdo with too many goals, you want to set achievable goals! Monthly Log page is essentially an overview of the whole year. Did someone send you “save the date” card for their Wedding? Well this is where you can record. It’s so much easer to see the date in a bigger picture then scrolling through the whole calendar. I also like to put monthly tasks into one place and then distribute them weekly onto my Weekly Planner.Now about the Week page. This is the main area where you will be actioning most of the tasks. This is where you set the timeline for every task. Failed to complete the task on the set week? Not to worry! With symbol system this planner can be flexible and forgiving as much as you want.

Let me introduce you to the bullet planning symbols. Events are marked with “–” and located on the left of the Week page while tasks are located on the right and marked with “.“. When I complete the task I mark it with “X“. At the end of the week I review my uncompleted tasks and mark it with “>” if moving tasks to the next week, “<“if moving the task back to Monthly Log and I cross the task off completely if I decide the task is no longer relevant or needed.

Meals and Shopping List worked well past few years so I am leaving this tool here unchanged. First timers, check this out! Finally if you have any notes, like recipes, party plans etc etc, all of this can be stored on the Notes page that is located after each Week page. These then can be recorded onto the Index page.When you need to find a particular note (that you hopefully recorded) then all you need to do is look up on Index page. Amazing, right? You won’t need to search for it through the whole planner again.Hopefully I got you inspired to be more organised/productive/and more for the next year? Then go get your printable planner here. I would recommend to get it printed by the printers as there are lots of pages and it is in A3 format.

Now if you like, I am giving away three planners to three lucky winners. All I need in return is your feedback. Be quick as there are a lot of interest already! Just send me a quick shout to rasa@friendlynettle.com

Rasa xoxo

My review of bullet journaling

By Rasa Pelham on September 1, 2018 in Autumn, Organisation, Plans&Goals

At the beginning of this year I tried bullet journalling, so how did I get on? Well… my opinion about it has not changed much. I think this system is best suited for a single person who loooooves stationary. However the system itself is cool and it can maybe be applied to a wall organiser. Or at least this is what I am hoping to do.

First I will start with positives of bullet journalling (need to be positive!).

1. I loved how this diary is like a book. It almost feels like writing a book! You know how they say that everyone has a book in them? Well, here is your chance to sort of practice and write it. It has page numbers, an index page, and more. 2. The BUJO system itself is very practical. It’s all about tracking your tasks, organising them in advance and moving them around to different time slots. The “future log” creates an area where you can store events and tasks that needs to be done sometime in the future. The symbols lets you identify if the task is completed, moved or canceled. If only I could somehow translate this system into the wall diary/organiser…. hmm. 3. My favourite part however is my new years goals pages. Although I feel I am slightly behind I feel splitting goals into tasks helped me to see the progress which itself is very uplifting. I know I know, if I do maths here I probably have almost half of the tasks completed, but only one third of the year left. So I am guessing I wont be able to complete all the tasks by the end of the year. But its ok, I can always review these tasks and forward some to the new year ;-). 4. Additionally to all the fab parts of bullet journalling, I can store project patterns,detailed event hosting plan with drawings and recipes, my cycle charts (embarrassed to say) and many more. Basically whatever floats your boat ;-). When it comes to negative points of using BUJO is that it is not easy to access for whole family. Yes bullet journal is perfect for storing personal stuff like charts etc, but other then that when it comes to family planning this needs to somehow to transfer to a wall organiser.

And btw, I mentioned before that I was very excited to use my fountain pen with this journaling business. However this proved unpractical as I often had to wait till my writing dries before going onto next page. Also I made so many mistakes that by now I am not too bothered about my handwriting in this journal.

That is it for now, hope you found my review useful

Rasa xoxo

Why I’m putting my phone down for 28 days

By Rasa Pelham on January 31, 2018 in Arty Love, Deep thoughts, Plans&Goals, Updates

So here is a good idea, how about we ditch our smartphones for a month?! This is what I thought when somebody I follow on Instagram claimed they did it last year. Back then I thought it’s not a good timing to do it, but I was definitely interested in the freedom (I presumed) I would get. So I decided February is best and not only because it is shortest of all months. It’s because February is least eventful I suppose (minus Tomas birthday and Valentine’s Day)! And now I am getting really excited about this idea!!! And here are few good reasons why:

1. Need some time off. Can you imagine how much time I will save if I stop using my phone? Loads! I must admit I am practically living on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest and often flashing notification really distract me from doing the really important stuff. I can’t highlight enough how much time is wasted on media and because I will be stopping the use of media I decided not to blog for a month too. Because let’s admit it, it’s ok to take a break sometimes and get the other stuff done that never really gets done. Why? Because I am doing day to day jobs while still going through Instagram feed and while putting kids to sleep (please don’t judge).

2. Refocus! I am hoping while I am not constantly plugged into media, I may be able to start realising what is more important in my life. Because of screen I have been ignoring my kids sometimes. Sometimes I am so deep into reading an article that I don’t see my own child trying to get my attention. Hopefully I will get inspired not by Pinterest pictures but by images I see outside my phone screen.

3. I need to rest my eyes for a bit. Because let’s be honest, my eyesight is not getting any better. Not that they are getting worst either. What I really mean, I just need rest, a true rest.Ok, those were my reasons and here are my terms. How else would you know if I am not cheating!

I am actually going to read my texts and answer the phone calls! I am only ditching my smart phone and instead I am going to use one of those basic phones. We got one spare in case one of our phones breaks, so it will be easy to switch.

I will read e-mails once in the while on my laptop. And I might need to switch back to my smart phone when I need directions. I will try memorise google maps as much as I can or print out directions like in good old days.

And that’s it, hope I remembered to mention everything in here.Do you want to join me? It’s not too late and it does not have to be in February (you can pick a month most convenient to you)! Hope I inspired you ;-)

Rasa xoxo

How I started bullet journal + my New Year goals

By Rasa Pelham on January 11, 2018 in Daydreaming, Inspiration, Learn something new, Plans&Goals, Updates

So here we are, I am starting my very first bullet journal!! As excited as I am you should really know that it took me over a year to actually try out this organisational system. Initially I noticed my friend Jacolien journaling on the Instagram (@made2celebrate) and then I read somewhere that this system lets you do more with less??? This could not fit in my head, how pretty page layouts with beautiful fonts would save me time and make me more organised? This is when my friend Jacolien explained that these layouts are completely optional and bullet journal can be whatever you make of it! So I decided to go with the original Ryder Carroll style (who by the way created this system after all) which is very simplistic indeed. May upgrade it later if my handwriting improves in any way. I will let you know how I got on, but for now here are my goals for this year that is already included in my bullet journal.

I may not set many goals last year, I am expecting quite a lot this year. My bullet journal is pretty full for the next six months which has not happen for few years. For each goal I listed tasks to help me to achieve it, some tasks have the deadline and some have been scheduled into calendar already.

1.Upgrade Friendly Nettle website goal was on my mind for four years. I think this year will be the year when I finally do it. I I will begin in February as this is when I am thinking to take a break from blogging for a month and from then on I will schedule once a week appointment with the website. Hopefully this will do.

2.Get arty, because I forgot how to paint or draw. This is why I decided this year to replace reading books to watercolour painting (the media I like the best). Like with books I will review my artwork here on the blog.

3.Reach healthy BMI as I am seriously overweight. I reached my biggest I have ever beed and I am feeling this is effecting my health too. Luckily loosing weight is not time consuming. All I need to do is reduce my meal portions, don’t stress eat and fast once a month. I think this should do the trick.

4.Make our house beautiful, because we still doing it up. Hopefully this year the cosmetics and decorations are going to be done. I am not actually thinking it’s possible to finish all the house DIY completely. I have already set up some deadlines for some tasks, although this goal I am feeling least confident about sadly.

5.Create child friendly garden has been my dream for a while. I need to be confident that kids can play safety outside as well as growing a small patch of veg on the side. I am thinking to start in March once the preps for Tomas dedication/birthday party prep is over. So how did I got on with bullet journaling so far? I think quite ok, I understood the system after reading about it on few blogs, but the video that explain it best is on bullet journal website. There are few pros and cons that I can see so far. But what does’t have pros and cons? So far I love that this system requires you to (1) handwrite (kind of con as well), you got to have a love for stationary! I even bought myself a fountain pen that I get so much pleasure out. The bullet journal itself is (2) very easy to set up, all you need is index, future log and a monthly log. From that on you just can start scribbling simple notes that are either to-do lists or ideas. As long as all those notes are attached to the right symbol you are set to go. Besides, you can (3) customise it as much as you like! I started using my BUJO (short for bullet journal) for personal stuff such as tracking my weight loss and recording my body temperature for NFP. So these are my positives.

Things that I am still trying to work out is (1) how to organise events between our family planner and my personal journal. I end up writing the same event twice, to the journal and then to our planner, this is often confusing and sometimes I wish all those notes synchronised somehow! The other issue I have so far is that (2) the bullet journaling is not for perfectionist (at least at the beginning). I already made many mistakes that can’t be erased. I guess I just have to look at it as a journey on improving my hand writing.Hope you started 2018 well!

Rasa xoxo

My sugar free diet: update

By Rasa Pelham on May 12, 2016 in Healthy, Plans&Goals

Since my sugar free diet is officially over (thanks to evil cookies above), I thought I will give you some feedback. Some of you may know I removed sugar from my diet in March and April which was the longest I survived without eating something sweet. So I am really pleased with that at the least :-).

In the beginning I avoided foods that have added sugar, but I soon realised there were sooo many alternatives available that are almost as good as a chocolate cake! I guess you don’t realise that because there are not many cakes like that available ready made. This is why I went mad over pinning hundreds of recipes on Pinterest that are raw and sugar free. I tried few of them myself ;-).

Here came the April and I decided to make it a bit strict. I chose to avoid all types of sugar which if you have any idea is very very hard to do. Sugar (even natural sugar) is everywhere. Fruits are the more obvious, but little did you know even milk contains small amounts of sugar. So I really had to restrain myself. I think what really helped is munching on nuts (which has small amounts of sugar as well in case you wondering). I think I ate so many that I was wondering is I am going to experience some sort of side effects. Thankfully nothing happened and I did not develop any nut allergies (feel sorry for all of those who suffers from it!).

Anyhow, so what are my overall feelings about sugar free diet? I I think it’s great if you can stick to it! Personally I think it is simple diet, no special meal planing, all you need to do is don’t add sugar to your food or check your food labels. After all if it taste sweet then probably it has high contents of sugar.

Did I loose any weight? Yes, although not much. I lost about 5kg through two months period which is little to compare how much I usually loose on any other diet. I guess I can blame my very slow metabolism after having a baby!

Did I feel more energetic? A lot of people shared with me that they feel so much more energetic after quitting sugar. Well, this did not work out for me. I felt the opposite, very very sluggish in fact. I wonder why? Maybe the hormones (after having the baby) or maybe that was a “cold turkey” I was experiencing.

Am I less of sugar addict? I think yes! I find it much easer to survive a day without a cake. Although I don’t say no if the cake presents itself. I also realised that I don’t have to eat the cake if its not my type of cake. I remember I used to eat a cake just because I can and because it is sweet (bye bye boring sponge cakes!). I find myself asking, do I really want this cupcake with icing? The other day I learned to make icing rose decoration for a cupcake, I was super pleased I gave it to Joni instead as I realised I would not enjoy it that much other than sugar satisfaction. Hope you found my story inspiring ;-)

Rasa xoxo

Sugar free April

By Rasa Pelham on April 2, 2016 in Healthy, Plans&Goals

So here is, the end of sugar free (almost) March! It was a great success even though I indulged in lots of sugar during Easter. Could anyone resist all that chocolate going around? I think it was a good learning curve and I am up for another month of trying out this “sugar-free” diet, detox, quitting or what ever else you want to call it!

So here how it went… In the very beginning I was expecting cold turkey sort of stage. But no such thing happened, instead I got little bit of cold. Not sure if it was how my body was coping or just coincidence :-D. I mean, don’t get me wrong it was very hard to fight the temptation, but eventually I found the other foods to sweeten my life! Grapes are good for example and bananas of course. I tried making banana 2 ingredient pancakes that you see all over Pinterest (the other ingredient is egg), but I found it not very pancakey, instead it felt like sweet soufflé. At the end I added third ingredient which is flour, which made everything soooo much better. It would of course work with any other type of flour or oatmeal if you prefer. Then I discovered I could make sweet treats that are sugar free! I even created a board on Pinterest dedicated to raw treats, that are of course sugar free. My favourite are these chocolate energy bars that I made in different variations. Yum! Although I did feel sick few times after consuming too many… Next, I realised I could introduce chocolate into my breakfast. This was getting suspiciously naughty! I was adding cocoa powder into my oats and sweeting it with dates. I felt like eating a cake for breakfast! Few weeks ago I mentioned that I was quitting sugar to my sister. It turned out she was quitting it too!! We must be synchronised ;-). She did questioned my sugar substitutions as I was sipping on wine. Turns out that fruit contain sugar! I mean it’s natural, but still sugar!

During Easter I fell back even further… I got tempted by chocolate :(. At least I wasn’t alone. Nicola said she was having sugar days as well. Once it was over I was actually glad to resume as it made me pretty sick. So I guess it’s good, I can see sugar free March was working for me ;-)So what is my goal for April? Well, cut out all types of sugar. That includes fruits and wine! Eeeeek! Wish me luck! Will let you know next month how it went :-).

Rasa xoxo

Sugar free March

By Rasa Pelham on March 1, 2016 in Healthy, Plans&Goals

And where do I begin? My relationship with sugar is a life long! I don’t remember at what point I became addicted to it, but I blame my mum that, who often would have something sweet after each meal. Don’t get me wrong, in general I enjoy eating healthily, I always love side salads with my meals and I find healthy looking food quite appealing. However sugar is just getting in my way! I heard so many good testimonies about people who completely cut out sugar, but I never considered it was for me. Why? Well… I never believed I could survive without sugar! My passion is baking, how I would do that without tasting?

But something changed my mind last week. While chatting with other mums at one of the socials I go to I realised I was not alone! You see I always thought that it’s ok to eat sweet things once in a while and that it’s not effective to completely quit. In reality I found quite opposite. Because once I have a slice of cake I immediately want another slice! I find that moderation does not work for everybody. After hearing another success story of quitting sugar I realised that moderation is not for addicts. I decided to first quit and then see if I can enjoy that piece of cake once in the while. This is where you are coming in to help me. Because I am writing about my plans openly here, therefore I feel accountable to you and I am more likely to succeed. What is in it for you? Well.. I will tell you my story in the end which hopefully will be an inspiration to you.

So what exactly will I be quitting? There are many types of sugar out there and I decided to quit even the most innocent types such as honey and my beloved agave nectar that I drizzle onto my breakfast oats. I also decided to no longer fool myself over organic chocolate, because it still has sugar!!! The only sweet things I may eat in my moments of desperation are fruits and maybe sugar free chocolate (that does exist thankfully!). My plan is to last for at least a month hence sugar free March ;-)Which me luck!

Rasa xoxo

My 2016 resolutions

By Rasa Pelham on January 7, 2016 in Plans&Goals

Writing New Year resolutions is my favourite thing to do on New Years Eve! I love it more than celebrating. I did not even stay up till midnight this time, instead I woke up the next morning feeling it’s a New Year with new beginnings… exciting! After reflecting on 2015 and realising what worked and what did not I was able to create even better goal plan this year… or at least I hope so. I decided I need to be even more organised and make sure to keep it simple as my life have been turned upside down with little Lukas in my life ;-). This is why I decided to make 5 goals rather than 7. Here they are!

1. Upgrade Friendly Nettle website. Same as last year unfortunately, but I am more determined this year so I am still feeling hopeful!

2. Turn our house into home. As you know we purchased our first family home last year but after Lukas arrival did not have a time to do any home improovement on it yet. Hopefully 2016 is the year!

3. Learn to take better pictures. Again same as last year :(. I do have a better plan for it this year, you just wait and see!

4. Teach Lukas to Swim. Ok, I have few goals hidden in this one! First, I always dreamed of teaching my baby to swim but I also get to exercise with him. Hopefully this will help me to come back to my original shape which wasn’t great either after last year’s Christmas (I mean 2014 Christmas :-0). Secondary (which is not related to swimming) I am hoping to get into the habit of not overeating so that kind of helps me to get fit. Am I making any sense here?

5. Grow cucumbers :-). I know, this is the most random goal I ever had. This has been suggested by my wonderful mum in-law! At first I thought that’s silly, but then I thought it could mean more than growing cucumbers. It could mean doing a little bit of gardening! After all I HAVE a garden this year! Not making crazy transformations in the garden just yet (you know, focusing on my no.2 goal), but growing temporary annuals could be quite satisfying while not committing to big landscape changes such as planting perennials or shrubs. I hope you had fun with creating resolutions for this year!

Rasa xoxo

A colour story for our new home

By Rasa Pelham on September 8, 2015 in Home-sweet-home, Inspiration, Plans&Goals, Updates

I want something exciting to say. We have finally exchanged with our house purchase last week! Anybody who bought the house before know what it means: we will have this house for sure and the date is set when we could move in. Yey!

Ever since we exchanged I have been dreaming how we are going to decorate the house and what alterations we are going to make. I have done this before and it was difficult and long process. But now I am not alone so hopefully we will settle much quicker, although we have baby on the way so I am interested to see how difficult it will be to do at least some DIY.

I have started planning the colours. Why? Because I really really want everything to “flow” in the house and right now I already need to buy few things that will match (such as sofa bed for my mum to sleep in when she is visiting her grandchild). I must admit last time I was decorating the house I did not put so much effort in planning the colour… because I went an easy way and chose neutral colours (mostly white). Yes, I did get many comments that it looked like a hospital to begin with, although I accessorised it with bold colours so it was cute at the end). This time I want to be braver and try darker colours (gosh, I am sooooo scared that it may make the place look small). But I so love those eccentric rooms that I see on Pinterest, so the challenge is on!

So how did I create this colour story? I am very lucky that I have gone to Uni to do fashion. During my course one of the things I have learned is exactly that, creating a colour story for a collection. It is of course very different to creating a colour story for the house, but the goal is the same: to create a set of colours that will be used through out the project (in this case the whole house). Of course I had failed many times before. One instance I remember quite clearly when my colour story looked like a rainbow just because I liked many colours and because I arranged them in colour wheel order. Another thing I learned is to identify what colours are main and which ones are for the accents. For better visualisation arrange the accent colours in small amounts that could be displayed in a item form (such as red lamp in the pic below). The third advise I can give is to look through some pictures of the house interiors and see what colour arrangement you like (Pinterest or Houzz have been a good source to me). For instance I like the feature wall colour in the pic below combined with bold colour picture display on it.

I like red as an accent colour but I might try this and paint bigger furniture in red as well. The pic bellow comes from Apartment Therapy.

Although black is not a main colour in my colour story I would love to have a black board wall where we could scribble things! The pic bellow comes from IKEA website as an inspiration.And of course I would love to decorate the house with many plants! The pic bellow comes from My Attic.I hope you found this useful :-)

Rasa x

5 steps to basic budgeting

By Rasa Pelham on January 28, 2015 in Budget £, Plans&Goals

At the beginning of this year I promised I would share a little bit about the budgeting system I use. I hope that this will be of help to you. I have made plenty of money related mistakes in the past and by 2008 I was in debt and my wage was not covering my expenses. This is when I have started budgeting and with a few breaks I have continued applying my method to this day. So if you are completely lost and maybe in debt, I know how you must feel.

So here are my five steps to basic budgeting.

STEP 1. Review your expenses and be honest with yourself! Because you need to have a clear view of your spending before setting an actual budget. See how much you spend for food, rent, transport not forgetting those sneaky annual subscriptions. Write a list of what you spend money on and how much in each category. Try to keep it monthly, so items that are annual should be divided by 12 to let you know how much you should budget towards them in any month..

STEP 2. Set monthly allowances! Once you reviewed your expenses you can start deciding how much you should spend each month in each category. e.g. food, transport or some craft supplies. Don’t forget to set some money aside each month for unexpected expenses and even Christmas costs (I know it’s little early to think about Christmas but it really helps to have a lump some at the end of the year ready to spend on all those gifts, food, and hosting). When it comes to the lifestyle budget, I would say be reasonably generous (unless you are paying off some debts). Because you need to treat yourself often enough! I used to set a very small budget for my lifestyle and often used to overspend it leading to even quitting budgeting all together sometimes. So it’s better to keep your budget then trying to save unrealistic amount of money. Another thing I would suggest is to make a spreadsheet for your budget. It’s so much easer to your goals when it is placed in writing! STEP 3: Put some money to savings. After you have worked out your budget you can now work out how much you have leftover. Some people say that you should first set money to save and then count your budget. But I think my way is easer, because I believe that it helps to save more when you earn more and then use some of the savings when you earn little. Your choice! I generally set up a standing order to go out each month for saving. Online banking is awesome!

STEP 4: Track your expenses every time you shop. Back in 2008 I had a spreadsheet to record my spendings. I used to collect receipts and then at the end of the day I used to type it all up. Luckily in 2009 I have got myself a smartphone where I could track my budgeting on the spot (The app I used and still use is called “Spend”). As you can imagine my purse got slightly without that bulk of those receipts!

STEP 5: Review your budget once in the while (not only in January). You need to constantly check what you are spending and whether it is less then expected and maybe set a smaller budget. Or maybe there are expenses that you don’t have a budget for?Recently we realised we needed a new budget category as Leia our cat was constantly draining our grocery and lifestyle budgets. We would not have noticed that if we did not do our budget reviews!I hope you found this useful!

Rasa xoxo

A year with books

By Rasa Pelham on January 21, 2015 in Book worm, Plans&Goals

One of my New Year resolutions was to read more books. I am embarrassed to say that the maximum number of books (and by books I mean novels) I read in the year was about 3. And 3 is a very small little number. No wonder I so often get stuck for words when I write this blog! So this year I promised to myself (and you if you are taking any notes) to read at least the double, or more if things work out… So basically I have queued up 6 books to read this year. Some of the books have been recommended by my friends over the years, some are from the authors that I love and some are just classics that I should have read long long time ago! So here is the list:

1. “Flora and Grace” by Maureen Lee have been recommended by my dear mum. In fact I suppose to get this book for her but I forgot to take it with me when I went to Lithuania and now it is sort of staying with me until march. Anyhow, I am half way in and I must say the english here seem quite basic and slightly boring. Thankfully the story is interesting and I am really looking forward to know the end of it!2. “Oh Dear Silvia” by Dawn French going to be a second book I read by the same author. I absolutely love Dawn French and her humour sense! I read “A Tiny Bit Marvellous” three years ago and it almost physically melted in my hands. So looking forward to the start of reading this one!3. “Two Caravans” by Marina Lewycka have been recommended by Vicki and I have a feeling I will want to read all of this Author books! I have been told it is super funny and who does not like funny? Most importantly the author is Ukrainian so I can relate a little since I am Lithuanian!4. “Sense and Sensibility” by Jane Austen is an obvious classic. Have watched a movie already and ready to read an actual book. Guess what?! The real reason for buying this book was because the new edition with arty cover is really pretty! Just so you know, polka dots can practically sell me anything :-D. 5. The Undomestic Goddess” by Sophie Kinsella have been recommended by somebody from my knitting social group long long time ago. The cover looks a bit tacky, but I have decided not to judge the book by its cover and give it a chance. Will let you know how it goes!6. “To Kill A Mocking Bird” is another classic. I did not have a chance to read it at school because the schools in Lithuania don’t include this in their reading lists. I suspect it is a bit dark (I could be wrong, I have no idea!), but I knew I need to read this as is referenced so often in other books and movies. So I decided I will have a go!I hope you feel inspired today to read or at least set the goals to read this year. If you like any of the books in my list you can of course “steel” them, I honestly don’t mind ;-). Come back for my reviews, they might be silly and probably quite unprofessional. But oh well, its fun to share with others what you thought of the book! Wouldn’t you agree?