thank you, next

 

I think I can speak for many people (based on word-of-mouth, facebook status’, tweets and THE general feeling) when I say that we are happy to leave 2018 behind.

On the other hand, I think a lot of people also have a good feeling about 2019, myself included.

Don’t get me wrong, good things happened in 2018 but I can count them on one hand. I went travelling with my best friend around Asia for 3 weeks, I graduated with a First Class Degree, moved in with my boyfriend and his lovely family and I started my first full-time job!

I think no matter how bad the previous year has been we all can take things away from it, reflect and change things for the year ahead. So here are my 3 new year’s resolutions:

1. To look after myself more

I mean this in every sense of the word; emotionally, physically, mentally. I need to eat better, it’s not a want, it’s a need. I need to start looking after my skin to prevent later life botox dilemmas. I need to read more and do things for myself. I also definitely need to stop being so hard on myself mentally and physically. It’s a learning process I suppose…

2.  To continue educating myself 

Finishing education has been one of the hardest adjustments I’ve gone through, never mind moving countries many blue moons ago, this has been another level of struggle. Getting used to ‘normal’ adult life has been tough, despite not wanting to jump straight into a masters or any further education in particular I feel quite lost without having to do something like essays. So in 2019 I want to start learning something new or at least get a new hobby to keep my brain ticking.

3.  To be more mindful, grateful and kind 

I would consider myself to be a pretty grateful and kind person as is but I want to be more mindful of my actions how they impact me and others around me, with this comes gratefulness and kindness for what and who I already have in my life. I need to start learning to appreciate things more, not take things for granted and understand that things take time.

I hope this has helped you figure out some resolutions / long-life life adaptations of your own.

Coline x

How To Save Money On Holidays

 

It’s a good job my partner has this too …

 

In most cases, you book your holiday directly through a travel agents, which is seen the easiest, safest and quickest way. From personal experience, easiest and quickest is a 100% true, but with that you then also pay extra for their services and other hidden cost (which can be deducted, in some cases).

For our first trip to Thailand, we decided to do just that, asked around for best places / travel agents and the lot. After doing our research we found that STA Travel would offer us the most affordable option to do everything we wanted to during our first trip to Asia.

In total the trip came to around £2,000 per person, including all expenses like flights (international and domestic), hotels, excursions, spending money etc. Which for a 2 week holiday isn’t that bad, but not affordable for everyone.

Thailand 2016

 

After spending the best two weeks of my life in Thailand we decided that a trip back to Asia the following year was a must, so we decided on Vietnam.

We explored the option of flying back to Thailand to explore the last few places that we didn’t have the time / chance to in our first trip. The option that was presented to us by STA was out of our budget so we opted to visit Vietnam alone.

After looking at the possible routes and trips we could take, we were advised on the South – North trip. Flying from Birmingham – Ho Chi Minh and flying back from Hanoi – Birmingham, through STA we paid £450 each. Minutes after we found the same flights on Skyscanner for £400. This was our first mistake, not even on solo booking but just not checking and getting too excited to get it booked. We called STA for price matching and that was sorted but we still lost our deposit.

So if you find a flight on skyscanner that flies from the UK and is cheaper than STA’s price, ring them and do a price match if you’re wanting a bit of safety and assurance than paying on a weird site.

Good tip: if you are offered late night flights, ask to see if the same flight flies the night before. We were going to go on Friday the 9th, still booking time off work for that day so we checked for Thursday and the same night flight was available so we in turn gained a day in Vietnam by flying the night before.

Anyway, after booking the flights we began having a flick through a few travel brochures and travel blogs for inspiration and to get a rough idea on how long to spend in each town/city and how to get around.

We booked all of our hotels through booking.com, set up an account for some discount and once you stay in 10 hotels booked through then you can get ‘special’ discount. Alternatively, you can look for airbnb’s in most cities which can be a lot cheaper for city break in Europe and a nice flat in a city makes you feel more ‘immersed‘ in the city.

Anyway, instead of the sleeper trains we booked flights that were even cheaper and got us there in 1.5 hours not 13. If you’re looking for the authentic backpacking experience, the sleeper trains would be fun, however, we only had 15 days to get from bottom of Vietnam to the top.

To cut to the chase, spending in total £700 on all 9 hotels, £900 on flights and around £500 for excursions and domestic flights. So 2k in total for two people for 15 days of travelling.

Sapa, Vietnam 2017

 

This is the most time-consuming way of doing things, but if you book your holiday far enough in advance you have plenty of time to book everything and do your research. Saving yourself around £1,500.

Retrospectively speaking, rather than booking certain excursions online, wait until you get there and explore the different options offered by local tour guides and go for the best deal.

This can apply and be applied for any holiday, anywhere, rather than going onto a packaged deal it might be worth doing a little bit of extra digging and cutting the price down!

Apologies for the lengthy post but detail is necessary for this sort of post.

I would be more than happy to answer any questions or give any advice on this topic 🙂

Thanks for reading x

 

Seasonal Changes

Moving from Summer to Autumn and then Autumn to Winter is hard.

Even though while living in England everyone knows that the weather isn’t sensational and in reality we don’t get the best summers weather-wise but the actual concept of summer is there.

Light evenings and bright mornings somehow make things a little easier.

Autumn is all fun and games while the leaves on the trees turn all the lovely Instagrammable colours of yellow, orange and brown but then they drop and all trees are left naked.

I’ve not worked out the exact point of this blogpost but I think writing whilst feeling demotivated sparks some kind of interest in me.

Now we’re slowly (rather quickly actually) approaching winter all the stresses come out.

Third year of uni starts properly kicking in, deadlines don’t seem to far away, thinking of and buying 100’s of Christmas presents starts creeping up on you. Hats off to those people who start buying Christmas presents in the summer, great idea.

But all in all, as fun as the build up to Christmas is, you still miss summer.

However, I think everyone, especially stress-heads like me need to take some time out at this transitional time of year. If its even the afternoon, just take some time off and read a book, watch a film and pretend you don’t have deadlines or any other responsibilities. I think people (me) beat themselves up about not being productive or “busy” too much.

I read a blogpost not too long back, about how we glamourise “busyness”, being busy and rushed off your feet is cool and you look like you have your life together. Constantly having a filled calendar, yeah I’m probably exactly that person who thinks so, but it’s important to remember that being busy can make you exhausted, sometimes sad and just leave you feeling a little bit deflated at the end of it all.

So take some time off, drink a hot chocolate (or hot beverage of choice) and relax for a little bit 🙂 x

3 things that can make you (almost) instantly happy

Here’s a few tips to brighten up a bad day!

1. Tidying your room/work space

Productivity only happens in a clean environment for me.

Having a clear out of things you thought you’d wear but never have, moving things out of the way on your desk, creating a more minimalist and organised environment is like physically decluttering your mind.

Productivity = less stress = happiness.

2. Having something to look forward to

Taking the time to plan and try doing something (maybe, different) every week makes me so happy. A cinema trip, a meal out, binge watching Peaky Blinders. The simplest things that just require that little bit of planning ahead can make your week much better knowing that at the end of it you can unwind.

3. Taking some time off 

Turning off your phone, deleting/signing out of your social media apps is honestly theraputic. I attempted to stay off social media for lent, which I failed by having pizza for my other lent. But, for the 1 week that i didn’t use Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or Snapchat I genuinely felt happier.

After two days I didn’t care what was going on either of those apps and i think not looking at models all day on Instagram and not mindlessly scrolling down Twitter let me have some time to think, reflect, have better conversations and sleep for longer. I think it’s important to try doing it at least a few days a month just to have some time to yourself. I say as I post this blog on every social media platform I have an account on, but you get the gist.

Obviously, these may not apply to everyone, everyone has a different definition of happiness and different ways to achieve it but these are just simple, 5 minutes steps that can improve your mood almost instantly.

A few life lessons I’ve learnt in 2 years

I’ve been super MIA for about a year…

For unknown reasons, I thought once I make a blogpost about being really motivated,    healthy and looking like i had my life in order, that was all i could blog about. In reality, I havent ate as well as I did this time last year, since last year, I havent felt as organised and in control since then either.

But I feel like I finally have my creative juices back in order and I wanted to write a blog post about a few lessons I learnt while at uni, my experiences and lessons but I’m sure people could relate.

◊ Trying hard gets you… somewhere. 

As a sociology student I could completely disagree with myself here and state many arguments for why trying hard might actually get you nowhere. But from my own experiences in the last two years I can confidently say that trying hard can get you somewhere. (My current somewhere is getting good grades but it can be related to anything, well I say after I got a 2:2 on what I thought was my best essay yet).

My sociology teacher told me on results day 2015 as I cried about the fact that I didn’t get into Manchester uni, that it’s best to go to an average uni and be the best rather than a good uni and be very average. So that’s what I aimed to do.

Not to toot my own horn, but I’m doing pretty well at uni, but I also try very hard. I’m not naturally clever, so i have to make up for that and then an extra.

But like in life, if you genuinely try to work on whatever circumstances might stand in your way, you will eventually get somewhere and achieve what you set out.

Of course, you can have the people who do not try at all and still get it all, but that’s a very small minority. So keep trying.

 

◊ It’s okay to be selfish 

If you don’t want to go out, don’t.

If you want to stay in your room and cry at engagement videos on Facebook, do it.

I think when you come to uni, you make the decision to pay 9k a year + on average 4k for  your accommodation, you can be as selfish as your heart desires.

I think this one took me awhile to realise, because I felt bad every time I missed a night out, but i prioritized working to fund my summer.

If your friends ditch you and start losing interest just because you choose not to go out and drink, they’re not very good friends.

 

◊ Living alone is another ball game, as fab but as sad as you can imagine 

This one applies to living that little bit further away from home.

Living alone/ living away from home is honestly fab.

No-one tells you what to do, how to do it, when to do it etc..

But you also miss the sight of your dogs, parents and (old) bedroom (or if you’re like me and dont have one anymore).

I live close enough to uni to be able to commute really but doing it for 2 years in college made me sick of buses and Victoria Station.

3 things that are different when moving out:

• Your food will never be as good as a home cooked meal, probably using the same ingredients and all but it wont be as good as when your parents make it for you.
• Your dogs become a bit hot and cold, every time I come home I either get the biggest welcome or a slight ‘meh’ (a bit of a jump/ lick and that’s it). It’s only because they know you’re leaving again soon.
• You can never imagine really fully moving back in, the sad truth for me is that I’ve always been independent (apart from relying on dadtaxi) and visiting home is fabulous but lives go on and rooms are repainted and you no longer really have your spot. But that’s okay because I’ll be graduating at 22, so that’s old enough to make the big move into living completely alone.

 

◊ Money disappears out of your account, every single day. 

I used to consider myself to be pretty good/reasonable with money, however this, uni is VERY expensive. Even for those who get a big loan.

Socialising? £15-20 a week

Eating? £10-15 a week

Bills? £10+ a week

A roof over your head? £86+ a week

A deposit on your next house? £200

A short break to Italy? £450

It adds up, it is true in the sense that on a weekly basis you can spend as much or as little as possible but its hard. I’m absolutely fine with living in my overdraft when it comes to funding my holidays but when it comes to a night out, I’ll pay for food with 20ps that I’ve saved for 4 years.

 

Thanks for reading, if you’ve managed to read it all or even if you read the first sentance x

Healthy Shop On A Budget

 

To begin with, I don’t eat meat anymore so my healthy may be very different from others’ healthy but I buy the things that make me feel good.  I try to eat as healthy as possible with the occasional slip when buying discounted cookies or eating too many fries at McDonalds, but I do TRY very hard to eat good, healthy foods.

This is this weeks shopping, it all came to £13.30 (thanks to Aldi) bar the sweet potatoes I threw them in the picture but bought them last week. I think that price is very, very good because some of these items will last way over a week, the Alpro milk’s are currently 3 for £3 in Waitrose and one carton lasts me a week. Obviously the wheat biscuits will last over a week as I use two a day. I already had some items like peppers, spinach, green beans and cucumber in my fridge from the previous shop so this was like a top up. For things like bread, I go to Asda at around 10pm and buy about 4/5 bags of the discounted bread and freeze them… taking budgeting to the next level but you can’t beat a 24p bargain which usually costs £3. Doing this saves me so much money and time: it all comes to around £1 and lasts about 4/5 weeks. Winner winner.

I tend to use unsweetened soya milk from Aldi but whenever there’s a deal for the Alpro milks (which are usually expensive) I go for them. The Almond milk is perfect for porridge, cereal, coffee, smoothies and everything you’d use cow’s milk for but a much healthier, diary and cruelty free alternative.

In terms of fruit, I buy two bags of bananas because I freeze about 4 for my smoothies and I’m also obsessed with them so I always like to stock up and will probably have to go back to Aldi to get some more in a few days. I like to have a small fruit like apples, oranges or kiwis to have as a snack. Recently I’ve been obsessed with pineapple, it’s 69p and it’s amazing, so sweet and healthy, one big pineapple makes two good snacks so it’s worth it. I like to go to the market and buy some other fruits but today’s weather didn’t agree with me so I just stuck to Aldi, the fruit at the market is so cheap but it has to be eaten that day or frozen for smoothies.

Probably the best way to eat well on a budget is to bulk make, when looking for recipes always look at the amount of people it’ll serve and perhaps double the ingredients if it won’t cover many meals. I make my dinners which mainly serve 6, so I hope to get about 5/6 portions out of it depending on how I distribute etc. Bulk make a curry, stew, chili or whatever your heart desires, something that you can put in a container leave some in the fridge and freeze the others. Having pre-prepared dinners saves you from eating an unhealthy alternative because you’ve spent all that time preparing this you might as well eat it because it’s not going to stay good forever, this is my logic anyway. When I have work, I cook myself some pasta and put that with the stew in a container and then just warm it up in a microwave which helps with the temptation of getting a McDonalds and then I don’t feel like a bloated balloon after my break.

When deciding what to cook in bulk I go to Deliciously Ella’s blog or app, she has the best curry and stew ideas, my all time favourite is her sweet potato and chickpea stew, it’s so good and filling; I’ve made the sweet potato stew about 4 times and it’s lasted 4/5 dinners. Some of the lists of ingredients are daunting; expensive and long but I just choose what I like out of the ingredients and what’s the cheapest and go with that. When you buy the ingredients you’ll realise that most of it will last for much longer; I’m still using the same Apple Cider Vinegar and the spices from the first time that I made the stew, so in the long run it saves a lot of money. Some of the ingredients include things like quinoa which is really expensive for how small the packets are so I just have the stew’s with rice or pasta, mostly pasta when I take it to work with me and heat it up in the microwave.

Currently I’m making the chickpea (not quinoa) and turmeric curry, some/most of these recipes  are time consuming but taking a few hours out of your day to make them which in the long run will save so much more time preparing dinners every night is completely worth it. I think this dish is best made in bulk without the quinoa in it because I’m not sure how good is reheating it. However, I’m not using quinoa because I have some brown rice and pasta in my cupboard and it’s too expensive. I ended up with 5 containers following the original recipe on the blog, in those which I have less I’ll put some extra veg in to fill myself up!

All the ingredients for this curry can be brought from Aldi, instead of new potatoes I used baby potatoes and forgot the coriander, so in total this curry  cost under way £5 to make and lasts for 5 days, how fabulous.

When I don’t prepare my dinners in advance I turn to veggie burgers (from any supermarket, Lidl has the best ones I’ve tried yet) or make up a huge portion of rice and veggies or some pasta with soya mince from Tesco, it depends what I fancy on the day.

 

I hope this post has been somewhat helpful 🙂

Healthy Habits: Hair Care

I thought I would carry on my theme of routines, so I’m going to list in detail all the things I do that I see as being healthy/good/helpful or whatever else for me.

I will write a series of posts and dedicate each to specific ‘healthy habits’ head to toe.

Hair Care

1. CASTOR OIL 

Whenever I have a completely free day, so I know I don’t have to leave my flat for about 12 hours I will do a deep oil conditioning for my hair. I’ve been using castor oil for a few years, it first started when I got really sad about my hair length, I (still kind of am) was genuinely obsessed with the length and health of my hair. So I spent days on end on forums/youtube channels and the whole lot finding ways to grow my hair and a lot of people recommended castor oil (this was before the time the hair growth tablet craze kicked in). So I ended up trying it and it was a genuine miracle, my hair grew a lot (my hair is very thin and at the time extremely damaged so growth was a surprise). Castor oil is miles cheaper than Coconut oil, it’s also much thicker so when massaging into roots it can get a bit sticky but it’s so worth it.

So when I can get around to doing the conditioning, I rub/massage Castor Oil into my roots and cover the rest of my hair in Coconut Oil, put it in a bun and put a carrier bag either over my whole head or just the bun… not attractive but effective.

 

2. COCONUT OIL

I’m obsessed with coconut oil, as are millions of other people around the world. I’ve been using it for a good few years, I walk around with a carrier bag over my head for at least 6 hours every so often; I do attempt to do it as often as I can but having an oily head doesn’t always fit in with ordinary life. I won’t go into the masses of health benefits that coconut oil bring but in terms of hair it’s a good deep conditioning especially when left overnight, I try to leave it on for about as long as I can depending on when I’m working or leaving the flat. It leaves my hair feeling soft and just healthy in general, but it might not always be just the coconut oil as the processes taken after I wash it out play a part of my hair feeling amazing. I use Holland & Barrett Coconut Oil , it’s currently in the penny sale and that’s when I usually stock up on it or when there’s another good deal on at H&B because nearly £16 for one jar is a bit much, however it does last forever.

3. WASHING OUT PROCESS 

The L’Oreal Elvive Extraordinary Oil shampoo and conditioner are both amazing, after using these products just once it’s like having a rebirth of your hair. It’s like the split ends and dryness disappear (for maybe two days, life also gets in the way of hair), hair feels so soft and beautiful after this shampoo and conditioner. But back to the point, washing out Castor and Coconut Oil requires time, warm water and a lot of finger strength, as the castor oil is so thick and the coconut so oily it’s worth washing hair twice or even three times, but you’d be able to tell how many times you’d need to wash it .

I usually buy these in Superdrug (currently 2 for £5), they tend to have the best deals and student discount so it’s a win win.

4. REUSING AN OLDIE 

Aussie 3 Minute Miracle  is probably my favourite quick hair mask. It takes 3 minutes to make your hair smell and feel wonderful. I don’t use it after every wash, it depends on what I’ve done with my hair on the day I wash it etc. But this is an amazing treat for my hair especially after having oils in it for about 12/15 hours. This is also a little pricey but Superdrug are currently selling it at £2.48  so it’s completely worth stocking up on.

I don’t use heat on my hair, I just let it naturally dry and deal with it as it is, my hair isn’t in the perfect condition but not dying it (living with roots down to my ears) and not using heat has definitely helped. This is probably the best healthy habit I actually have in my routine because not drying/straightening/dying my hair lets my hair actually breath and not form as many split ends or dry out. So I just use these other methods to improve my already somewhat healthy hair. 

5. BABY POWDER 

Baby powder is a life saver, I’ve been using it a few months and after swearing by dry shampoo this is another world. I start using it maybe 2 days after I wash it but sometimes it depends whether I’ve been at work or gone out if so I’ll use it probably just one day after washing. Anyway, it’s so light on the hair and if rubbed in properly there’s no sight of it, using dry shampoo sometimes created a few white streaks which if left for awhile don’t rub in properly but baby powder is so easy to rub in and it’s invisible. For me it’s definitely the healthier alternative to dry shampoo, it’s so much cheaper than dry shampoo as well £1 in most places in comparison to £3 for Batiste,  I mean if it’s used on new born babies it can’t be too harmful?

First EVER Blog Post

 

My flat mates motivated me to start a blog because I have a “good routine of life”…

So this blog will most likely be about my life; what, where, when, why and how, I suppose.

The best way to probably start this blog is actually explaining what I do that made my flat mates think this would be blog worthy, they think I could have an motivational impact so here I am. I have thought about starting a blog for a while but I never actually got around to writing something, as much as I actually enjoy just talking, because I can talk for England.

My routine:

*I wake up at 07:00-07:30 am everyday (bar the mornings when I fall asleep at 3 am because of a current holiday shopping addiction, or a 14 hour shift at work, so it’s probably more like 10:00 am which makes me very sad but I need that beauty sleep!)

*I haven’t missed a breakfast since as long as I can remember, I eat my porridge by half 7 (made with soya or almond milk – I’ve been cutting down on diary for months) or make a smoothie (best combo: frozen bananas, raspberries, spinach, cucumber, chia seeds, cinnamon with water, soya or almond milk.) which fills me up for about an hour or two then I have breakfast number 2, my new addiction is a mashed banana on wholemeal bread with cinnamon sprinkled on top (as seen in the header of this post). I was/still am obsessed with peanut butter but I decided it was time to cut that out too. I’m that religious about breakfast that months ago I used to wake up just to eat and then go back to sleep.

*I’ve had 6 deadlines for uni since late Jan/early Feb until last and this week, so I just spend the time before my gym classes doing some of my essays, which is nice because the whole block is quiet and I am the only one in my kitchen- so much peace. Somehow this has been the most successful part of my routine as I managed to finish 4 essays quite a bit before their deadline. At the moment I am completely procrastinating; I should be finishing my second to last essay however, I’m writing this instead, so hey ho.

*I joined the gym in January after a long fight against it because student life got me thinking that £18.99 was an enormous amount of money. I first joined two days after starting uni in September because I was on a quest to look/feel good now that I was completely in charge of what I ate. I cancelled my membership three days later and then finally had a reality check again in January and re-joined, started classes and they are the best thing about my routine. I attempt to attend at least one class a day, preferably in the morning, so I’m usually back in my flat for 11:00 am.

I mean, it’s not an amazing or even an interesting routine but I think people expect students to wake up at 2 pm, I know many who do do that but I’m not paying £13,000 a year to re-live my days back at home.

My flatmates actually sat and admired my hard-working spirit while I was sat in the kitchen writing my essay. This genuinely made me feel amazing, the effort and hard work I put into (most) things I do is actually being acknowledged by those around me.

Maybe this blog will end up being completely uni dedicated which I don’t want it to be because everyone is completely entitled to living their own uni life but I am enjoying uni without going out every night/week (or even every month as I can’t remember the last time I’ve actually been properly drunk!) By no means am I saying that I don’t enjoy the odd Corp Wednesday or a Saturday night down Carver Street with my bottle of £2.50 Aldi fruity rosé. But I work every weekend and most Wednesdays so I prefer to earn money and see it going into something a little more exciting like my trip to Thailand this June. So in conclusion, it is my working hours that completely disagree with me going out rather than me… Maybe.

*Disclaimer: I am in no way showing off, I don’t know if that’s how this can be portrayed, but I’m just throwing it out there that everyone can wake up at 7 am and have a productive day.

Word count: 730 (lol)

I have 500 words left of my essay which I’ve been struggling with doing all day and I’ve just wrote this blog post in under 45 minutes.