10 Fabulous ideas for things to do in lockdown
So in England we find ourselves in our third national lockdown. But if you’re (un)lucky enough to live in Lancashire like me, well, then you’ll know that we’ve pretty much been in lockdown the entire pandemic! In case you find yourself with spare time during the pandemic and don’t want to commit to becoming fluent in another language / starting a new business / reading a novel a week. But do want some productive things to do without crazy commitments (that generally make you feel worse about yourself), then read on for my guide on…
Fabulous things to do in lockdown …
Indoor me, living my best lockdown life
Create photo books 📸
Making photo books can be time consuming, so why not use this time to create them! You can do them for specific holidays and trips, events like a wedding or I do them for each year. I really like these ones on Photobox, which have the year cut out on the front. It’ll also help clear the clutter of photos off your phone.
I really like these ones from PhotoBox with the cut out front. I like trying to choose the photos for each hole!
Try new workout classes online 🏋🏻♀️
So I don’t know about you, but I feel slightly awkward when I go to a new gym class for the first time. This is the perfect opportunity to try new classes! There’s none of the awkwardness of not knowing where to stand or not knowing what equipment you need. There’s none of the “Aargh I’m doing the wrong thing to everyone else” or not knowing what a certain move or exercise is. We can try different things without the commitment of gym memberships. If we don’t like the instructor or that class, we don’t need to do it again and there’s no embarrassment. Plus there’s the added bonus of turning your video off!
As an aside, I would say if you’re in a financial position to do so, please donate to the instructors PayPal pools / Kofi / Patreon. Many of them have had zero support from the furlough schemes and any amount really helps.
Here’s an example of the lockdown care packages I made for friends
Create lockdown care packages 😷
The best way to be happy is to make someone else happy! Now I’ve already written a dedicated blog post on this, which you can read here. But you can do this very inexpensively and isn’t about big gifts, but hey if you’re in a position to do that, great! It really is the little things. Printing out activities to get your mum friends through homeschooling, or a new recipe you’ve been enjoying.
Set up all direct debits to come out at same time 💸
Nothing wrong with a bit of life admin! Spending some time ringing or on online chat with companies to see if you can move your direct debit dates for your bills. This makes life so much easier as if everything comes out at the same time, you know your exact budget for the rest of the month and there’s no fear about over spending on shopping..
Update your address book 🏡
Lets face it, we’re all using online card companies to send our birthday / celebration cards at the moment. And if you’re like me, you know the road your friend lives on, but not the door number or postcode. Have you ever gone on to Google earth to zoom in on your friends door number?!?! Errr, no no, me neither 😏
Anywhosy, If you’re sick of repeatedly searching through your WhatsApp for bits of your friends road to bring up their address, then take an hour to update everyones in an address book.
Create a film list 🎬
Never know what to watch?! Me too! So how about creating a list of films you want to watch to use as your go to. It will save you the scrolling time. I’ve a few ideas on this..
Go to IMDB and make a list of the top 20 films for the last 20 years and write the ones you’ve not seen yet. This also should guarantee that you’ll be watching something good as well!
Pick a franchise. Watch all the Star Wars, Harry Potter or Marvel universe in order.
Pick a theme. I used to do this with my friends when we could actually see people! We would pick a theme like Australian films and then take it in turns to suggest a film in that category. Categories could be a country, an actor, a genre. Let me know if you want a post on the ones we watched!
AUTOMATE YOUR LIFE!
Unsubscribe from email lists 📧
Anyone else getting emails from companies they bought something once from years ago saying they are here for you in this difficult time?! Me too! Instead of hitting select all and mark as read, take a little time each morning to open each one and scroll to the bottom. They all have an Unsubscribe in the small print at the bottom. Over the space of a month, you should start receiving less noise and your email inbox will be curated so you’re only receiving emails you’re actively interested in.
Sign up to TopCashBack 🤑
Hustle! We’re all ordering everything online so why not make money from it? This isn’t too good to be true, it really is FREE MONEY! I have made literally over £1,000 using TopCashBack which has meant I have had holidays (ah remember those?!) for FREEEEE!
TopCashBack is a website and app that you use before the website you want to buy something on. So for example, you sign in to TopCashBack, you search for a website and click on the link to the site. This will open the website you want to shop on. Just shop as you would normally and checkout as normal. You ARE on the main shop website, it’s not a different location and you can use the same payment methods you have always done. You don’t need to do anything differently.
The purchase tracks in the background and you receive some cash back for your purchase. The amount you receive depends on the value of what you’ve bought and the offer on TopCashBack. It can take a few months to build up and become available to withdraw. But there isn’t a minimum amount and you can bank transfer it directly to your bank account.
Soo many websites are on TopCashBack, utility companies, insurance companies, supermarkets, fashion, beauty. Even eBay! It covers 90% of my shopping needs.
Yes, I have had over £1,000 of FREE money
ShopTagr 🛍
Just a little something to take the guess work out of online shopping. This is a website which notifies you when out of stock items are back in stock and/or on sale.
Sign up to the website and add it as an extension to your browser. Then when you’re online shopping and something in your size is out of stock, you can add it to your ShopTagr. You’ll then get an email notification when your size is back in stock. You can also select to be notified if there’s a price change on the item.
They also have some promo codes saved for certain websites, although I haven’t has a great level of success with this feature. It has worked a few times and I’ve ended up with some discount. ShopTagr also offer cashback, but I haven’t used this feature either, I’m not sure whether this would mean my TopCashBack then wouldn’t work 🤔
Plan to eat app
My final life admin idea is to download the Plan To Eat App. This is meal planning and shopping list tool, but it has really made shopping so much easier! It can take a little bit of set up time, but once this is done, it will save you so much time each week!
Basically, you drag and drop onto a calendar which meals you want for the following week and it will generate a shopping list based on the meals selected. The meals have to be loaded to the App, which can be done by linking to recipes on different websites. Most of the big websites are supported, like BBC Good Food, Pinch of Nom, Slimming World, Joe Wicks. If a recipe is from an unsupported website, you can type the ingredients in and save it so it will still work. There are also good features like being able to alter recipes for different servings. So if the recipe you’ve found feeds 6 and there’s only the 2 of you, it will alter the ingredients by a third to suit.
There is a section to add non food items. And once the shopping list is generated, you can alter the list if you already have some of the items.
So these are my top 10 ideas! I hope I’ve given you some inspo. Let me know if you’ll be trying any of these ideas, and if so, which ones?
xXx
