Parenting Archives | Page 2 of 234 | The Diary of a Frugal Family

20 Free things to do together at Christmas….

176555 Comments2018-12-02+10%3A10%3A09Cassandra December 2, 2018 By Cassandra
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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...]

How to pick out the perfect real Christmas tree….

29711Leave a Comment2018-12-01+10%3A00%3A29Cassandra December 1, 2018 By Cassandra
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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...]

Why I DON’T Agree with ‘Presence not Presents’….

293417 Comments2018-11-28+10%3A00%3A55Cassandra November 28, 2018 By Cassandra
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I really hate the phrase 'Presence not Presents' and today, I'm going to tell you why along with sharing my thoughts on the current trend of present-shaming!There's a lot of present-shaming going on around social media at the moment with more judging taking place than you see on the X-Factor and Strictly combined and today, I wanted to tell you just what I think about the number of presents that you choose to buy your children and the amount you decide to spend on those presents.You know, just because 99% of people of social media have an opinion about it and I don't like to feel … [Read more...]

Find your ‘Why’ and use it to achieve your financial goals….

29772Leave a Comment2018-11-27+10%3A00%3A59Cassandra November 27, 2018 By Cassandra
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I know I say this often but it’s because I truly believe it! We all have different reasons to be frugal and whatever our reason, it’s absolutely valid. Your reason should be what motivates you and what keeps you going and today I’m going to share my new reason – my new ‘why’?For us, we’ve paid our debts now, we’ve pretty much got our budget down to the lowest I think it can go without sacrificing things that we don’t want to sacrifice and we’re overpaying our mortgage by a comfortable amount each month to allow us to repay our mortgage in 10 years rather than the 21 years left that we … [Read more...]

What to do when your flight is overbooked….

29766Leave a Comment2018-11-23+18%3A30%3A23Cassandra November 23, 2018 By Cassandra
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A couple of weeks ago, Miss Frugal and I went on a bit of a dream holiday to Los Angeles together and it was honestly an amazing experience that we enjoyed every single minute of. It felt a little bit surreal if I’m honest because every day we saw so many things that we’d seen on TV and read about in books!Despite the fact we had such a brilliant time, we were both more than ready to come home at the end of the trip though as we ‘d been so busy for the entire week we were there that we were pretty exhausted and all as awful as this sounds we were all ‘wowed’ out.We’re both quite good … [Read more...]

Bringing the Magic Back this Christmas….

294563 Comments2018-11-21+10%3A00%3A01Cassandra November 21, 2018 By Cassandra
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This isn't one of those 'woe is me' posts but I want to share my reasons for why this Christmas is more important to me than any Christmas for as long as I can remember. To explain fully, we need to rewind a little bit to Christmas 2016 when I was off work sick following a hemorrhoidectomy operation that I'd had at the end of September. Prior to the operation, I'd been in a lot of pain with a thrombosed haemorrhoid since the end of June time and after the operation, the pain was unbelievable was quite a while so I was on quite strong painkillers for lengthy periods throughout … [Read more...]