The final week of Motivember has come to an end! In this post I’m going to talk about how the last week has been. I’ll do another post in the next few days to analyse the month as a whole. Oh, and if you like charts then this is the post for you!
Post every day – Did this. One of the days was nothing more than a photograph but that is within the rules. NaBloPoMo doesn’t want me to write a novel (that’s NaNoWriMo’s job!) I also, finally, right at the end of the month… got around to making drafts ready for future posts. In fact this very post was partially pre-drafted. Which is great because it means I can have posts ready in advance. So maybe I’ll be able to keep this posting daily thing going. Maybe.
The chart above shows how the visits and page views increased over the course of November as I posted more frequently. November started at the end of week 44; most of the month falls into those final four bars. The slight increase before that is most likely because I started the Foster Diaries in October, and who doesn’t want to read about/see pictures of adorable kittens?!
Sub Goal: Get Freshly Pressed – As I said last week I did not see this as very likely to happen, because my best chance would seem to be through the writing or photo challenges and I didn’t get around to participating in them. I don’t mind though. I didn’t expect this to be a goal I would hit, but I had to at least aim for it.
Write every day – I did indeed manage to write every day this past week, though one of the days was only about 50 words. But even if it had been only two words it was still something. Much better than skipping days!
The chart below shows how much I wrote each day. As the blue line makes very obvious there was a bit of a curve to it – I did much better in the beginning and very end of the week than the middle. The red bit at the bottom of the bars show how much I wrote for the blog which gives a bit of comparison to the top green parts which show how much I wrote towards my NaNoWriMo. Friday was not a great day for writing, but you can just about see the red and green at the bottom there!
Win! – I did it! Yes!! My first ever win! I can’t stop looking at that purple bar…! The novel is not finished yet though, so there’s still plenty of work to do. Hopefully I can keep up momentum. I’d like to have the whole novel written before I go to England, but I don’t know how feasible that is because I can’t say for certain how many words there are left to write. I think it should be doable though.
- Eat Less Chocolate
Limit chocolate bars to two a week, weekends only – I did stick to only the two bars, but I had them on Thursday and Friday not Friday and Saturday, so that was a little bit of a cheat. But I was having a really awful day on Thursday so I think I can be excused. It’s really much easier to stick to this goal now. I’ve got used to not being able to eat chocolate daily. And sure, pretty much every day we’ll finish our meal and I’ll wish we had something sweet to eat… Maybe I’ll make some biscuits or something… But yeah, easier. I think I can keep this up. Advent calendar chocolate doesn’t count against it!
- Exercise More
Workout Monday, Wednesday and Friday – Done, done and done. We switched from the foundation exercises to alternating between core, posture and full body. I don’t get as achey after the workouts as I did back at the beginning of the month, but when I do get aches it seems to be in my legs or occasionally upper arms. I still have a “soft” stomach which I would like to get sorted out. It’s not going to happen overnight though.
Get outside daily – Did not do this. I missed yesterday (busy working on finishing NaNoWriMo) and Tuesday (don’t remember why…) Equally it is getting pretty darn chilly around here nowadays so staying inside is far preferable… I’ll keep trying to get out and get some fresh air most days though!
- Saving Electricity
No computers before midday – There were two exceptions this week. Saturday of course has become my try-to-have-a-Marathon day which necessitates computer use. Friday I had (streamed ) lectures to watch all day. I could have watched the stream at my polytechnic but I would have missed Ilona leaving and I wanted to be able to say goodbye. Plus I was a little bit emotional about her leaving and did not exactly want to be around other people.
The chart above shows the difference in energy use for this past November compared to the November of last year. It’s a fairly significant difference. I’m not sure that it is entirely down to our changes in computer habits. Doing this experiment has made us more aware of our electricity usage in general. We’ve worked out which of our lights are most energy efficient to use, for example, and if we have to use lights (it’s dark this time of year…) we make sure we use those ones rather than the less efficient ones.
Actually the chart on the website shows that our electricity usage has been improving (as in decreasing) this year even before doing this experiment! Our average over the past year though is still pretty high compared to what the website seems to think it should be. In as much as it is more than they say a high-energy use household would have, but we’re working on it. We’ll get there.
- Extra Goal – Food Spending
Limit grocery spending – This time last week I talked a little bit about our budget, and the fact that we only had 58 cents left in our grocery budget. The idea was that until the end of the month (yesterday) we would not spend more than that, which considering costs meant we would not spend anything on groceries. That didn’t quite work out, and we ended the month overspent by a little under 5€. I still count this as a success though. For one thing, spending no more than about 5€ on food in a week is pretty good going, even if we were running low on almost everything (milk, butter, bread, meat, vegetables…) by the end. The other reason I count it as a success is… well, look at this chart.
This shows our monthly food spending since we started using the budget software that we use (and love!). The fact that the month we started is so much higher than the following months just goes to show how much difference having a budget makes! Anyway, the white line that you can see through the red bars shows our target spending goal for food. Our food category does not include junk food or food for the cats; they have their own separate categories. November is the first month that we’ve actually finished under budget, and somehow we’ve managed to be crazily under budget… Which of course is a good thing.
I don’t exactly remember how we chose the budget goal for our grocery spending. It can’t have had any basis on our July spending because that was a lot higher than the line. It was a fairly good estimate though, seeing as (excluding July) our average spend on food has been no more than about 1.1% over the goal. And I don’t think it should be too difficult to shave that last percentage off.
And that’s the end of Motivember! Maybe it’s time for a break?!
Love,
Lady Joyful
P.S. If you’re interested in taking a look at the budget software we use you can find it here. If you want to buy, the software is currently 50% off, and this referral link will also save you 6$ (Full disclosure – I will receive 6$ as a reward for each successful referral)
Have you achieved your goals for this past week? Do you like the charts?!
The Joyful Soul 
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