Recent Bargains

Another quiet week here so I thought I'd share a few of our recent bargains.

 I picked this up today for £2 from a Facebook selling page. Bear loves the one at a group we go to, so now he has his own.

This was £1 from a nearly new sale...

As was this!

These skittles still have the label, and seem brand new. They were £3 from a charity shop.

The stroller was £10 from a Facebook selling page and makes Bear look as though he is in an armchair. (He's into clips at the moment so I couldn't get a picture without him in the way!)

I keep an eye out all the time for things we might need or toys I think Bear might like. For example, we have already bought a toddler bed with mattress, duvet, pillow, and duvet cover set from John Lewis for £25. The bed frame alone from Ikea would cost more than this! 

Have you picked up any bargains lately? 

This Week

I seem to be apologising a lot recently for not keeping up with posts. Illness is to blame this week; bear has had an awful cold and I have had 2 migraines. So, to be honest, we haven't done very much this week. We played with some chalk and went to the park a few times, and that's about it!

Hopefully normal service will be resumed next week.

Oh, I've done pretty well with planning lunches though - we've had leftovers 3 times and scrambled egg.

Lunchtime Lethargy

Up until recently, Little Bear would have sandwichey bits for lunch - bread, cheese, ham, cucumber, sometimes avocado,  and some fruit for afters. However, over the last few weeks, he has stopped eating most of these things including cheese which was his favourite! So I have had to come up with some other ideas, which are quick and easy to prepare as we are often out in the mornings and rush home to get lunch. Cost is a factor, obviously, and to be honest, I don't want to spend my whole day cooking; making a main evening meal is enough.

Eggs have been a hit generally. Scrambled, omelette and eggy bread go down well.

I want to become better at planning for leftovers. We had pasta bake a couple of nights ago but there was none left.

I thought I'd try some soups, seeing as Bear is getting really good with a spoon. Today I made vegetable (1 carrot, 1 leek and 2 small potatoes, and a stock cube). It cost way under £1 for a pan full that will feed both of us for 2 days. Well, that was the plan anyway. Little Bear wouldn't eat it :( So for his lunch he had some crackers, a rice cake and a satsuma. A really balanced meal.

I liked it anyway. 

What do you do for lunch?

Return to Normality

So the summer holidays are over, husband has gone back to work and groups are starting to resume. We had a great time over the 6 weeks doing not so frugal things. We tried to keep costs down where possible but really just used the time to do activities as a family.

We therefore have to tighten our belts over the coming months to save for Christmas. I'm going to try really hard to spend as little as possible, utilising free activities. I will have a car one afternoon a week which I'm really looking forward to as I can take Little Bear swimming or to soft play. These aren't free but I'll have to budget accordingly.

I might share some ideas for Christmas presents (if I think of any!) and I'm in the middle of knitting bears winter sweaters which I will also share.

In the meantime, back to colouring.

Paper from ikea, crayons from my local newsagents for £4.49

What we've been doing Wednesday

First off, I need to apologise for the recent lack of posts. My husband is a teacher (don't know if I've mentioned that before) so is on holiday for 6 weeks - Yay!! This means that we have been doing (not necessarily frugal) family things, with access to the car. A lot of our normal groups don't run in the holidays either, but normal service will be resumed in September.

I'll give you an idea of what we have been doing though:

Soft play

We went to Sea World in Birmingham while visiting my brother in law and his partner (half price tickets booked online in advance!)

We went to the RSPB nature reserve in Sandy because little bear loves birds. It was £5 to park, and then free entry. Unfortunately we didn't see that many birds but we did see some rather pretty butterflies. 

I did a messy play date for some of bear's buddies, with spaghetti, jelly, edible paint and water play.

We've been swimming, and spent lots of time outdoors going on walks.

Next week we are going to the zoo thanks to Tesco voucher exchange, and at the end of August, we are going to Pembrokeshire for a bargain week holiday. 

I'll try to update a bit more regularly. xx

Wonderful Water Wall

Having tried loooaaads of messy play ideas with little bear, none of which he has been particularly interested in, I thought I should indulge his interest in water. I can't remember where I first saw water walls but decided to make one - my husband's reaction was 'Oh, great, something else for you to obsess over until you've done it'.

I asked on our local Facebook selling group but no one has any spare trellis I could have, so bought a 6x3ft piece of expandable trellis from our local hardware shop for £4.99. Bear was very helpful in getting it home!

I also got a pack of 50 cable ties for £1.80 but we only used about 15. As I mentioned before, my husband is a teacher. Each year, a class wins a prize for most commendations; £25 to spend how they wish. Last year, they ordered pizzas for lunch but this year, they wanted party food. This slight ramble means that most of the bottles were completely free, as they were left over from the party. Husband was under strict instructions to bring the empties home!

So it was just a question of arranging the bottles, punching holes in to tie them, and adding some cable tidy tubing we had in the shed. We made funnels, troughs and roses.

We used some tacks from the shed to nail it to the fence. We live in a rented house so wanted to be able to move it easily; you could build it on your fence if you wanted to.

He liked it but can't quite reach the taller ones - something to grow into. 

It is easy being green

I'm sorry, I just completely forgot to do a what we've been doing post on Wednesday. My husband is a teacher and he broke up for the summer on Tuesday afternoon so we've had some relaxing family time. I've also signed up to walk 26 miles in the London trekathon in support of the PSP Association (not so relaxing! More on this to follow) so I was a bit preoccupied thinking about when I can fit in training.

So here is a post I wrote a while ago about cloth nappies:

It probably comes as no surprise that we use cloth nappies on little bear. We use the totsbots 2 part system and have size 1 (which bear grew out of around 4 months old) and size 2 which should last until potty training. Each set contains around 20 nappies and 5 or 6 wraps and we got both second hand for £50 each; a total outlay of £100. Bargain!

We also use cloth wipes which we used exclusively for a couple of months but we now use wet wipes for poos. We put paper liners in the nappies (from tesco, a few pounds for 100 but they are really wide so we tear them in half. 2 for the price of 1!) Bear is also in disposable nappies at night as we couldn't find any combination of cloth nappies and boosters that didn't leak. Having said that, he doesn't wee as much at night anymore so I've been thinking about switching back to full time cloth - it's just having the courage to do it one night...

We wash every other day at 40°, line dry in the summer (radiator in winter) and don't iron them. This keeps the 'running costs' down.

The Nappy Lady explains that it can cost £800-1200 for disposables from birth to potty training. This means we have potentially saved  upwards of £1000! Plus, we will reuse the nappies for any subsequent babies.

I love cloth nappies. We've never had a 'poosplosion'. We rarely have to change bear when out and about anymore but have a wet bag if necessary. Cloth don't sag like disposables do and they're really no more bother than disposables but the environmental impact is so much less. Annecdotally, babies in cloth potty train earlier because they feel the wetness more obviously than disposables, which have become too good at wicking the moisture away, ironically. My mum once told me it's the one of my parenting choices she is most proud of.

Plus, they're really cute!