Cheap and easy brownie recipe.

I am a chocoholic! I love a bit of chocolate and love to bake. These are my favourite brownies. I don't often make them as they are crammed full of calories but they are so yummy and quick to make.

The ingredients

250g of butter or margarine

100g of cocoa

500g of sugar

4 beaten eggs

100g self raising flour

100g of dessicated coconut

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

Heat the butter in a pan until melted then stir in the sugar and cocoa until it has turned into a chocolatey goop.

Add the flour, coconut and beaten eggs then stir well.

Dollop it in to a square cake tin and put in the oven.

Bake for 40 minutes then check. It should be springy to the touch. Take out the oven and leave to cool in the tin.

These are great served still slightly gooey with ice cream. If you like them gooey, let them cook for just 30 minutes before removing from the oven.

It costs less than £3.70 for the whole thing and you can get 16 pieces out of it, that's less than 24p per piece. Bargainous brownies!

7 Quick Ways To Earn Money

1. Car boot. May is a great time for doing car boots! There are usually ones on each bank holiday weekend during May and the weather is nice enough for people to come out. Gather up your junk and see what you can sell.

2. Ebay. More expensive things are better to sell on ebay. Likewise for heavier items such as furniture.

3. Facebook selling pages. I do this for bundles of baby clothes that we won't be using any more. It is good for selling things quickly. Most items I post up are collected same day.

4. Direct debits. Check through them. Is there anything on there that shouldn't be? Can you cancel any subscriptions you have?

5. Sell your mobile/old CD's/DVD's. Websites like Musicmagpie are great for getting rid of CD's. I was recently given in excess of 100 old DVD's by a neighbour and after I had sifted through which I wanted to keep and which I didn't, I popped the info into MusicMagpie and got myself £65! Selling our old mobile phones got us £30. That is better than keeping them in a bedside drawer.

6.  Pick up change. We have a change pot for all the odd bits of change that bulk up our purse/wallet. If we see change thrown on the pavement this gets picked up and put in the pot. We empty it every 3 months or so and get about £25 a time.

7. Plan your meals. Work out what you really need to buy on each shopping trip to make your meals for the week. This saves on buying things that won't get used, and things that you already from going out of date. The money you save can be used to put towards a treat.

Thanks for reading,
xx

10 top tips for travelling abroad cheaply.

Last May we went on our very first family holiday abroad. Actually it was our very first family holiday anywhere! Our daughters have up until now never stayed anywhere other than our home. I am going to let you know about all the 'frugal' things we have done to ensure this is a memorable holiday for us without spending too much money.

1. We have been saving for this holiday for 2 years! On my 25th birthday I was given one of those unopenable pot money boxes. They are made so you have to break the pot to get in to the money which means we weren't tempted to open it up and pinch the pennies. We decided to just put £2 coins in to it. We opened it 1 and a half years later when it was nearly full and there was just over £900 in there!

2. Book your holiday at a time when most people don't book. We went with Thomsons as they seem to offer the best deal. We booked our deal in the time between Christmas and New Year because they were offering £100 off any package holiday.

3. See what upgrades are available when you book. We were researching half board options but checked how much it would be to upgrade to full board. It was an incredible 10 pence per person!! This was for 10 days so effectively we were getting an evening meal for 1 pence per day per person! Clearly, this was too good to pass up so we added this to our booking.

4. Go through a cashback website. We used Quidco and they gave us £10 just for clicking through to the Thomson website via theirs. 

5. Choose carefully when you go on holiday. It is usually the case that under 2's fly free and stay free in hotels.  This is a great thing to take advantage of if you have young children. If you are able to then go while your little ones are little.

6. Prebook your airport parking. We also did this through Quidco and made £4.08 cashback. 

7. Use price comparison websites to research your travel insurance. We found a great deal through them with a company that offered us great cover as a family for just over £10.

8. Check if your bank account offers free travel insurance. Some bank accounts have this included so you could save yourself money by using it.

9. When you check in, see if you can upgrade your seats to get extra legroom. This is something I really love to get but rather than prebooking it I wait until I get to the airport as they offer them for less than half price. Likewise with upgrading to business class. I have never travelled abroad before without doing this last minute and each time have got a great deal.

10. This last one is maybe obvious but if you are able to travel outside of school holidays you will save bucket loads. We are trying to save up again for a holiday next year so we can make the most of the time our daughter isn't in school. It is incredibly unfair how travel companies increase prices during school holidays but I suppose they are the optimum times for people travelling. 


I can't wait for our next holiday. I find planning the holiday almost as fun as going on one!

Thanks for reading,
xx

My top 13 newborn items you don't need!

This is following on from one of my previous posts about my top 5 newborn must haves. These are a few of the items we have found no use for and wouldn't advise anybody to purchase. There are so many gimmicks around baby products and it is easy to feel overwhelmed with what shops are telling you you must buy. Don't be fooled! Take time to think if you really do need to buy it and check to see if you have anything at home already that would do the job. Having a baby doesn't need to be expensive.

1. Baby bath. We had one of these but rarely used it. It was easier so wash our daughter in the bathroom sink or to put her in the bath when I was having a bath at the same time.

2. Wipe warmer. I'm fairly sure it never did a baby any harm having a room temperature bum wipe!

3. Nappy bin. Pointless purchase when you have to empty it in to your main bin anyway. We put them in the kitchen bin straight away and never had any bad smells coming out of it.

4. Baby shoes. Your baby will not walk for months and months! Why would you buy shoes for it??

5. Talc. My midwife and health visitor recommended not using talc as it doesn't do anything good for the baby. If they inhale it it can cause breathing problems too. Moisturiser is best for them.

6. Nappy stacker. A pointless purchase. We either had a bag of nappies under the changing table when we used it, or now we have a box of nappies in our bedroom for when we need them. If you want your nappies stacked somewhere, buy a normal storage box for a third of the price.

7. Changing table. We did have one of these to start with but it is just as easy to change a baby on a bed or on the floor. It's worth bearing in mind that there's quite a risk of baby falling off a table if you have one. If you get given one then great, but don't specifically go out and buy one.

8. Bath thermometer. You can tell if a bath is too hot by sticking your hand in it, you don't need a thermometer to tell you if it is too hot or too cold.

9. Manual breast pump. If you intend to express milk at all, you need to get an electric pump. Manual ones take 4 times as long to get any milk out, plus they hurt your hand a lot! Electric pumps tend to be able to do 2 boobs at once too.

10. Baby food maker. If you intend on making your own baby food then a regular food processor works just as well as these baby food makers on the market. Or you can get one of those 'blitz sticks' which just stick in a bowl and blitz it up.

11. Baby towels. We bought some of these when I was pregnant but in hindsight really didn't need them. A regular towel does the job fine and you must have some of those in your home already.

12. Bottle warmer. Stick a bottle in a jug of hot water for a while! It isn't hard!

13. Expensive baby bedding. We got a bedding bundle as a gift when baby was born and we haven't used a lot out of it. Cot bumpers have had a lot of bad press around them causing infant death so that put us off using one for a while. (We did use it for a while when she went through a wriggly head banging stage). You're told not to use baby blankets for a long time because of the suffocation risk so that only leaves the sheet out of the bedding bundle that you will actually use. I'll admit we just use a single bed sheet tucked right underneath the mattress. Much cheaper.

I hope this has given you an idea of what unnecessary purchases I have made and that it can stop you making the same mistakes I have done!

Thanks for reading,
xx

My Top 5 Newborn Must Haves.

It is overwhelming how many products there are aimed at new parents. You are never quite sure what you will need and what products really work. Here are my top picks of the products we bought that made our lives easier.

1. Angel care movement monitor. This is an amazing monitor as not only does it let you listen to your baby, it also has a movement sensor that lets you know baby is still breathing. It is a horrible thing to think about but I'm sure every parent has the same thoughts about if their baby is still ok. On the parent part of the monitor there is a swinging pendulum which swings each time baby takes a breath. Should the worst thing happen, and alarm sounds to let you know there is a problem. This let us sleep much more soundly at night without worrying.

2. Turtle night light. We got this as a gift for Christmas just a month after our daughter was born. It was bought from B&M bargain shop for around £5. It projects different coloured stars on to the ceiling to create a calming environment while baby is falling asleep.

3. Gro-Anywhere black out blind. It took us a while to get into a night time routine but when we did we made sure when baby was having her last feed and being put to bed it was in a very dark room so she got the hint it was night time and time for sleep. This blind makes it pitch black in whatever room you're in. It's great for nap times or when you're staying away from home.

4. Tommee Tippee Milk feeding bibs. Our baby was a major dribbler when she was feeding. Normal bibs didn't do the trick and she used to get really sore and red under her neck where the milk dribbled and collected. These bibs fit closely around the neck to stop milk going anywhere. They have a super absorbent band around the top which soaks up any dribbles.

5. Mam bottles. Our daughter was breastfed for many months but we did use to give breastmilk to her from a bottle. These were the best bottles that we could find and where great for colic due to the design of the bottle. They are super easy to clean as you don't need a separate steriliser. If we need bottles for any future children we may have then these would be our only purchase.

Thanks for reading

xx

How I Save On My Electric Bill

It really annoys me how much energy bills are. I work hard to earn money and then have to give it away to the energy firms just because I want to have the light on or cook a family meal. 

Since the beginning of my frugal living journey I have done my best to cut our electricity consumption. This time last year we lived in a small 2 bedroom flat and had a prepayment meter which are more expensive than other tariffs. Our average monthly usage was around £90 (we had no gas supply). This month we have only used £26 which is a huge difference considering we now live in a big 3 bedroom house.

1. Always check for the cheapest tariff that you can get. There are comparison websites that do this for you.

2. Once you have found the cheapest tariff, check cashback sites to see if they have that provider listed. They often offer money for people switching between providers.

3. Now you have got the best deal, you can work on reducing your energy consumption. Everything you have with a plug is costing you money! 


It might seem like common sense but I didn't realise what a difference it would make to my monthly bills just turning things off at the wall. Leaving TV's on standby, cookers switched on at the wall, phone chargers plugged in, these are all draining electric.

We don't turn lights on and off as we go to each room. If we are going to be upstairs we put the landing light on and this is sufficient to light each room up there. Same with downstairs when we try and stay in the living room all evening with a small lamp on.

Check that your bulbs are energy efficient ones. They take a little while to come bright but they cost a fraction of a normal bulb to use.

Wait until you have a full load of washing to do, rather than doing a half wash. This saves on both electric and water. If your clothes aren't stained and just a bit smelly, see if your machine has a 'quick wash' setting which should freshen them up in half the time.

Batch cook to save on using your cooker so much. If I make a lasagne for example, I cook enough to do 8 portions and freeze what I don't need. That way I can get away with not using the cooker for so long on another night.

Have a quick shower. I usually allow myself 4 minutes in the shower and I find this more than sufficient to get myself clean. Bath times are a once a month treat.

If you have a work mobile phone then always charge it at work. Even if you have a personal mobile see if you can charge that at work too.

Most importantly, I'd advise keeping a check on how much electricity you are using by checking your meter and giving regular meter readings to your supplier. They often guestimate what your consumption is and can drastically overcharge you this way. When I moved in to this house they told me my direct debit for electric would be set at £108!!! I had to wait 3 months until they would re-evaluate it and because of that I am now massively in credit with them.

What suggestions can you give me to help further save on my bills? Any help is always appreciated! Lets not give any more of our hard earned money than we have to to those big companies!

Thanks for reading 
xx

The Little Things Add Up.

I have been thinking more and more about what I can do to save money each day. 

My friend struck up a conversation while we were at a playdate yesterday asking why I had a packed lunch with me and didn't I get bored of eating home made food. It seems so common to spend £3-£4 per day on a sandwich from Greggs along with a morning coffee and lunchtime coffee at £2 per go. I can't imagine wasting £8 per day/£40 per week/£160 per month on these things. £40 per week is my entire food budget for my family! This is when I realised that there are a lot of little things I do each day without realising that add up to a big saving.

Let me give you an idea of my money saving little bits for today...

• Shared a shower with my daughters (they are 5 months and 3 years old). Saved money on water/electric.
• Put a load of washing on a 'quick wash'. Takes half the time, half the energy.
• Hung the above washing out on the washing line as it is a beautiful drying day. Saved money on energy of using tumble drier.
• Went out for a brisk walk. Saves money on having the TV on at home and going to the gym for exercise.
• Rang up an appliance company to complain about my recent cooker purchase. It had arrived with a small dent in it. They immediately gave me £32 back as compensation.
• Baked a batch lot of muffins. I make 3 times as many as I need for the week and freeze the surplus. Saves energy on oven and also my time. Plus is a fun activity for my eldest daughter.
• Re-potted my tomato plants. I have grown these from seeds and will hopefully have proper tomato plants in a couple of months. Saves money on having to shop-buy tomatoes.

And it is only 12pm!

By making little changes to your way of thinking you can save money without realising it. Do you really need a shop bought lunch each day? Do you need to have the TV on as background noise? Do you need to give more of your hard earned money to energy companies and big supermarkets?

Thanks for reading!

xx