‘I Made Banana Bread’ Mantra

Hi girls,

I made banana bread! I reckon I’d be a great house wife haha.
Making banana bread is part of my ‘2019 mantra’ to be more content with the little things in life, stop having ‘FOMO’ and be more smart with money.
In the past, on a Friday or Saturday I was usually in a pub or a bar celebrating the weekend with friends but on the some weeks when I wasn’t doing that I’d feel a bit down and feel like I was missing out.
This is partly due to the fact that when you’re sitting on your sofa on a Saturday night and scrolling through Instagram seeing what everyone else has been up to that weekend, it makes you feel like you should have plans. Instagram shows that the ‘perfect weekend’ consists of Saturday brunch out with your girlfriends drinking lots of mimosas. Then shopping on a Saturday afternoon with friends before getting ready to go out for a night of drinking cocktails and dancing. Then the following morning on Sunday, a lie in followed by roast lunch at an insta-worthy gastro pub with family and friends, possibly with dogs as well, and an afternoon walk. Sounds great right and sometimes my weekends are as lovely as that but sometimes we do end up having a weekend of no plans and that’s okay, in fact that’s quite nice!

So I’m trying to be more content with not going out, enjoying being at home and enjoying simple things like cooking. So far this month I’ve made banana bread, vegan curry (I’m not vegan, it just happened to be a healthier recipe) and lots of batches of soup for my lunch at work.
Which coincides with my next plan; to save money. (I don’t call them new year resolutions because they never work). I’m turning 25 this year and I thought it was about time to start saving and putting a little bit of money aside each month. Up to now I have always lived to my means which most people do. Especially in London it is not exactly easy to save money. But this year I am really going to try! (I also have a credit card to pay off this year which scares me a little bit). Hopefully my above two mantras, meaning going out less, enjoying being at home, cooking batch meals etc will help.
I have downloaded an app called Money Dashboard which tracks your spending by entering your bank account details (it is a legitimate app, it was rated No.1 money saving app by The Financial Times). At the end of each month it gives you a recap report of what percentage of your money was spent on what category, i.e rent, clothing, food, transport, bills etc. You can also set budgets on there, for example if you wanted to only spend around £100 on disposable income categories like shopping for clothes, eating out etc, it will keep track of how much of that budget you have spent and send you reminders if you are getting close or even over it. I’ve been loving it so far and find it really helpful to be able to track my money more clearly so I’d highly recommend the app if you’re wanting to be smarter with your money this year like me.

So I’ll keep you updated throughout the year of how my ‘banana bread mantras’ are going, fingers crossed I stick to them!

Ps, see below a link to the banana bread recipe I used if you want to jump on my banana bread mantra…

https://thebakermama.com/recipes/5-ingredient-flourless-banana-bread/

Lots of love xxxx