As much as I don't like the ever increasing commercialism of Valentines Day, I do actually like the day itself and the idea behind it.  We never spend a fortune on gifts and we don't bother with cards but we do buy small gifts for each other and I always buy the kids something silly too!Around this time over the last few years I've written about how to be a cheap date and how to keep your romance alive on a budget and I've also shared my top 50 frugal date ideas with you but this year, I thought I'd share something different with you.This year, I want to focus on ways to love yourself … [Read more...]

Last year I wrote about how I wanted to help my children focus on the small things that make them happy (inspired by Karin's Embrace Happy philosophy) and I shared the Happy Books that we made together for them to write their happy moments in there.I still encourage them to write in their Happy books and just looking at some of the entries makes me smile.  This is my personal favourite from Miss Frugal who obviously didn't fancy our planned trip to a local museum recently: We went to the museum and it was shut! But can I do more to help my children find their own Happy?First of … [Read more...]

Before I start, this post isn't meant to be a debate about when children are old enough for phones or an opportunity to point out that we managed perfectly well without phones when we were younger.  It's not even a discussion about whether children should be allowed on social media although points of view are more than welcome as always if you really have to get in to that whole debate on here.The whole point of this post is to share with you some of Miss Frugal's favourite apps from her phone.  In fact, when I say I'm going to share ten apps that your tween can't live without I clearly … [Read more...]

This week, Master Frugal told me I was quite a cool Mum but that if I wanted to be really 'down with the kids' then there were certain things I had to learn.He very kindly offered to teach me what I needed to know and I thought some of you might benefit from my new found knowledge so here we go, here's his top tips for being a supercool parent.Anything that claims to be cool is absolutely not cool.  In fact, a bag that Miss Frugal loved instantly became a no-no when we saw that the company were advertising it as a 'Super Cool Satchel'It is not cool to shorten names for places. … [Read more...]