Alright beloveds, confess: what have you acquired over the last six months that is definitely due to COVID and why? Was it through shopping, swapping, or borrowing? Have you picked up a hobby only to abandon it, or are you now a certified expert? Have you “nested” during this time or become a die hard minimalist? What have you picked up for yourself or your family?

More houseplants. Can’t get a pet yet, so I spent about £20 on additional plants and my urban jungle brings me joy. Jeff likes to mock my black thumb but thus far I’ve only killed ONE. We’re in lockdown but I’m growing a neat little urban jungle to compensate.

A Dyson cooling fan. Every single year without fail, there is one week in August where London becomes unbearable. The air is stifling and stagnant with heat, the wind dies, and it’s generally just miserable. Now, in normal years you might be on holiday, you may be working from an office (more likely to have an air conditioning or cooling system than the vast majority of British apartments), you may be able to go out to a park and lay out in the sun with as few clothes on as legally permissible. But this year, nope! We all just had to sit around and stew in our own sweat. So we splashed out for a fancy, expensive fan to try and just get some airflow in the midst of a pretty brutal heatwave. With September creeping up and the worst of summer’s heat hopefully past, I’m hopeful that we’ll be trading fans for jumpers soon.

Kitchen knives. We’re cooking and baking much more, and so we finally replaced some pairing knives that we lost years ago, and bought higher quality chopping knives as well.

A new Yoga mat with slip control. My exercise habit has been inconsistent but at it’s best, I definitely needed an option that didn’t send me careening across our living room when I tried to do a downward dog.

A Le Creuset dutch oven and I feel like a REAL, LIVE GROWNUP NOW. This has long been a wishlist item of mine but could never justify the price until quite suddenly one was on terrific discount online and we just bit the bullet and bought it. And then we immediately used it to make the most decadent ragu I’ve ever had to christen it. I’m already scheming to master french onion soup next.

Cute underwear. Let’s be honest, this is a year where even if you were perfectly happy and healthy, you’ve probably still had whole weeks go by where you’ve felt like utter trash. I find that on of the things that helps me feel better is to look nice on purpose, and that starts from the skin out. I’ve been slowly making over my underwear drawer over the past year and a couple of lockdown purchases have been pretty underthings from independent British sellers, locally made, sustainable/ethical by design, and cute as hell. Feel good, support small businesses in a time of crisis, shop ethically. Everyone wins.

Linen sheets. Cool, clean, comfy. End of story.

Obviously, all the privilege caveats apply here. Clearly this was spread out over many months and I feel obliged to confirm that, in line with our other projects, we are making huge progress with our financial goals. But some of these were expensive…and none of them I regret. I’ve enjoyed our focus on cooking and kitchen experimenting, and while inconsistent I’ve been able to focus on health in different ways.

I’m fortunate to have had a job during this time and while I have a reasonable expectation of staying employed, 2020 has been a bitch of a year and I take nothing for granted anymore. It’s why we’ve been throwing as much money as possible at our debt and squirreling away extra money into an emergency fund, writing transparently on financial goals and choices helps keeps me on track.