I suspect I'm in the minority here but I don't have any time limits on the amount of screen time my children have each day. That's not to say that I don't care how much time they spend on electronics or that I wouldn't impose a limit if I felt it was necessary but right now, I just don't feel like we need screen time limits in our house.(To be clear, I class screen time as any time spent watching TV, playing on games consoles and using the iPad or mobile phones.)There's a lot of focus on blogs and in the media about the dangers of screen time and the need for activities that don't … [Read more...]

After months and months of putting it off, I have finally got around to booking our trip to New York!It's just going to be me and Miss Frugal for four nights in April and we're ridiculously excited about it and I thought today that I'd tell you a little bit about our booking experience because there really is a huge amount of choice out there and it can get confusing with all of the advice that everyone gives you.....We ended up booking the full package (flights and hotel) direct with British Airways for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, we wanted to go with a reputable company who I know … [Read more...]

I've never been one to talk about politics here on my blog and I'm certainly not about to start today but certain events that have happened this year (both in the UK and the US) have led to some very challenging discussions with my children about the world around us right now and that's something that I kind of do want to talk about.It's hard to know just what to talk about with our children when there are so many big changes going on in the world. I think it's important that they have an understanding of what's going on in on in the world but even more important that they continue to feel … [Read more...]

I love the start of a new year, it's like opening a shiny new notebook and writing on the pages for the first time.Being a bit of a list-aholic and a planner, I always like to set myself some New Year's Resolutions, some targets for the year and most importantly to me, a word of the year.A word of the year might sound a bit geeky if you don't do it yourself but it's actually a great way to set your focus for the year ahead and having a word of the year over the past few years has genuinely helped me to focus and achieve some of the things I wanted to achieve.  My word isn't a specific … [Read more...]

I hope you all had an amazing Christmas!We had a lovely day yesterday and I've woken up this morning feeling refreshed and happy after the lovely relaxing day we had yesterday.  Christmas doesn't always live up to expectations with excited children and tired parents but I have to say that yesterday was great and we all really enjoyed our day.Now that it's over, I'm sat eyeing up the Christma tree trying to decide how soon is too soon to take it down and I know you're all going to tell me it's much too soon but I'm literally having to sit on my hands to stop me from packing everything … [Read more...]