Burning the Christmas candle at both ends

The festive season is upon us, in case anyone needed a reminder. Tis the season to be jolly, joy to the world, hark the herald, mistletoe and wine. The Christmas commerce has seemingly not fully recovered from the financial crisis judging by the splurge of offers from well known high street brands that drop in my inbox with incessant frequency. These are trying times for a spendaholic. The 30%, 50%, 70% discounts are presumably designed for encouraging customers to spend their Christmas budget on gifts for loved ones and not themselves. Easier said than done. It is with grave difficulty then that this week I've resisted buying a pair of brogues from River Island for £25, down from £60. I could buy a Christmas present for that money. Then again I could do with a pair of brown leather brogues, casual, not too dressy. But I haven't done my Christmas shopping yet. Greed or generosity, it's an existential conundrum. Maybe my conscience will be less weighty if every other thing I buy is a present...

Christmas time also means that it's now been a year since I started blogging. The seed of which was sown just over a year ago in my friend Jeanette's front room in Harringay, north London. The aim was to chronicle my spending for the year ahead and see if keeping a running tally of my material outgoings would influence my spending behaviour. Safe to say that the answer to that one is distinctly unanimous and unambiguous. It's not changed one iota. My commitment to the cause hasn't waned. My bank balance isn't looking healthier. My wardrobe hasn't gone more capsule, not that there was any risk of that happening. Plenty of other things have changed over the year however, in particular relocating to the capital with its fervent lure of goods and services to purchase. It's like being a kid in one ginormous sweetshop filled with all the salt liquorices, Refreshers and pick & mixes ever produced.

As it's my first, and possibly only, Christmas as a Londoner I've launched a full scale Christmas party assault. This week alone I've been out on two work Christmas dos, one work leaving do and a cheesetastic Christmas dinner party with friends. I'm totally burning the Christmas candle out of every orifice. Knackered already and I've got another couple of Christmas dos and a pre-Christmas tipple oop north coming up next week. Think I need a holiday from life. The past week or so has very aptly summed up the cornerstones of my blog too - disaster, thriftiness and frivolity.

Disaster. Friday's leaving do was the third night tiles on the trot and I rather dramatically ran out of steam, possibly aided by the lack of sustenance to counter the booze. Two mince pies didn't quite do the trick. I eventually made it to Blackfriars to head home, the take away next to Stepney Green station firmly in my mind, but proceeded to pass out on the District line. When I came to it I found myself in Upney. Who even knew there was a place called Upney anyway?! Well I do now. It's 9 stations further east than I needed to go. Obviously I'd missed the last tube back west so had to Uber my ass home. And I couldn't be bothered stopping off at the take away either so ended up scoffing a whole bag of sweets just to get some 'nutrition'. Right disaster.

Thrifty. In the mood for donning some new outfits for the impending Christmas dos, I revisited my crafty past and turned out a couple of home styled creations with the help of Primark and eBay.

White shirt from Primark for a fiver with a stitched on frog motif pocket. I bought the fabric ages ago with the intention of making a baby growth for a friend's child but never got round to it, possibly because my lack of precise pattern cutting and sewing skills would combine to make the finished product look shit. At least I've managed to find some use for it now though.

White t shirt from Primark for £2.50 and felt rectangles for £1.99 from eBay. A bit of free hand cutting and wonder web, et voila! Two outfits for less than a tenner, clearly not exquisitely couture but good fun nevertheless. Just don't look too closely.

I also made good use of Tesco's Clubcard Boost to obtain these burgundy brogues. Already in the sale at £10 down from £20, I used a £5 voucher and boosted it to double the value so in effect the brogues didn't cost me anything. The best price there is.

Frivolous. Having already purchased two new winter coats the other month to complement the existing wardrobe options, one would assume that there's little need for extending the collection. Well... The clever marketing gurus at Topman know which buttons to press, and so it was that I fell prey to the 50% off coats and jackets temptation.

£45 it set me back which is frankly not a lot of money, and it looks pretty good, and I can now wear a different winter coat every day of the week, which is clearly a priority in life. 

So it would appear that the 'another year older, another year wiser' schtick doesn't quite stick. This time next year I'm bound to be looking back at another 12 months worth of obsessive compulsive purchasing and life mishaps. And that's definitely worth drinking to.