After the success of my FREE financial planner over the last few years, I thought I'd make an even bigger and better planner to help keep us all on track with our finances in 2018. Introducing my 2019 FREE financial planner...I shared the first version of this planner a couple of years ago now and even though it was pretty basic, lots of you downloaded it and told me how helpful it was and how motivating you found it to be.The second version was very similar to the version that I'm sharing today and included lots of new pages that you lovely lot asked me to include. Again, I … [Read more...]
Caring for the elderly – Why choose care at home over residential care?
Regular readers will know that we had a bit of an awful time with my Dad for the year or so before he passed away in March this year. For various reasons, we felt it was better that he was somewhere where he could be looked after and would have someone there to help him when he needed it but at times, he didn't agree. It was a very difficult and sad time all round and even now, I can feel myself starting to get upset as I think about everything.At the time, we found a lovely home for my Dad so we didn't really explore other options for him - mainly because I didn't really realise … [Read more...]
Homemade cranberry and white chocolate cookie mason jar gift….
Remember my post about homemade mason jar gifts from a couple of weeks ago? Well, today I'm sharing one of my favourite mason jar gifts with you - amazing homemade cranberry and white chocolate cookie mix and I'm pretty sure you're going to love this festive cookie mix as much as we do!How to assemble your cranberry and white chocolate cookie mason jar gift What you need:300g plain flour (2 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour if you're using US measurements) 1 tsp baking soda ½ tsp salt ¼ tsp cinnamon 200g dark brown sugar (1 cup) 100g granulated sugar (½ cup) 150g white chocolate … [Read more...]
20 Free things to do together at Christmas….
We all know that Christmas can be an expensive time but one thing that you don't need to spend a fortune on is the time you spend together as a family having fun and enjoying the build-up to the big day. There are plenty of completely free things to do together at Christmas!20 Free things to do together at Christmas Always top of our list for free family fun at Christmas is a good old movie afternoon watching Christmas movies - we have quite a collection of Christmas DVDs but we try to add a new one each year. The two that we can quite happily watch time after time are Elf and Santa … [Read more...]
There’s still plenty of time to declutter before Christmas….
I can't believe it's the 1st of December already!This means that I'm having my annual 'we have too much stuff and can't possibly fit any more into the house' panic which means that I'm currently mid-way through my annual declutter before Christmas!My yearly stress is a good thing though because I can get rid of some things we don't need any more and make some money at the same time! It’s such a great feeling to rid yourself of unwanted items, whether it’s a jumper you haven’t worn in years, shoes that you thought would be trendy (but definitely weren’t a few months later), or an … [Read more...]
How to pick out the perfect real Christmas tree….
It's that time of year again when the kids are pestering to put up the decorations and you have to decide whether you're going to get the artificial tree down from the loft or whether you're going to go for a real tree this year! Last year, we went for the second option and it didn't work out as well as we'd hoped...For years, the kids have been after us to get a real tree rather than use our big 7ft artificial one (which I love) and we finally gave in last year and headed out to the local farm to buy a real Christmas Tree for the first time. We're not real tree experts so after a … [Read more...]
