Shopping - Great Money Saving Tips

I LOVE to shop. Give me a chance to spend money and 98% of the time I will do it. But I also love saving money and seeking out a bargain! My main difficulty when it comes to shopping is that our nearest shopping towns are 20-25 miles away either way, so I end up spending my much-needed retail therapy budget on fuel and parking (yawn).

Anyhow - here are a few of my great money saving tips that I use when shopping (mainly online) - enjoy!!

Cashback Websites
Head to Quidco or Topcashback to earn cashback and find discount codes when shopping online. Even if it is travel insurance policy or a hotel break you're booking, see if you can get some money back. No better way to treat your other half than finding you can get 12% cashback on a £150 per night hotel room - that means more money for a nice meal!

Nectar Loyalty Card
Nectar is the biggest loyalty card scheme within the UK which launched in 2002 . It includes over 400 online retailers and points can be collected online and often in store. If you're not with Nectar already - please do get on there and sign up! This is my favourite money saving method because of the simplicity. It's as easy as this:

Log on to Nectar, find your retailer, click 'shop now & collect points' 

And BOOM! Points added a few weeks later.

A lot of retailers often do a double points period too, so the money saving can really add up. Now the fun part: redeeming the points :-) I usually let my points add up for about 9 months, by which time I might have around £50 to spend. You can then spend these points online at Sainsburys for your weekly shop, Pizza Express or even Easyjet, as well as many others. If you love to travel, consider spending them with Easyjet - we're heading to Venice in a couple of months' time and it's only costing us £30 each return - bargain!!

Your Bank
You will also find a lot of banks are starting their own reward schemes too. I'm with Halifax and they have a cashback scheme running , so I can log on to my account, see what offers there are from several retailers, and just by using my bank card I can earn cashback which goes straight to my account! If your bank isn't yet offering a money saving scheme then it wouldn't hurt to shop around, some banks offer you an instant cash reward for just joining them.

Email Sign Up
Browse your favourite shops and join their mailing lists - you sometimes get offered a discount just for signing up and it means you get regular emails from your faves so you never miss out on something new and fabulous, plus make some great money saving bargains. I never buy anything online at Dorothy Perkins unless I have a voucher code and always manage to get a free delivery discount code by searching Google (plus free returns if you change your mind!).

In Store
You find your perfect top in a store, and they only have one in your size. BUT there's a terrible make-up stain on it! What do you do? - No you don't put it back and wander off miserable. You ask for a discount. The worst they will say is there isn't one, but chances are nobody else will want it at full price either. Best case scenario - you get a love 20% discount off it (more if you're lucky)!


Supermarket Schemes and Mysupermarket
Head to MySupermarket and do your normal shop with your normal supermarket, and it will tell you if you're missing out on bigger savings elsewhere. This website compares the following shops so you know you're getting a good comparison:

And let's not forget the supermarket schemes on offer - Waitrose has the MyWaitrose card, Boots has a Boots Advantage card and Tesco has the Tesco clubcard plus all the others available. With the Tesco scheme we save up our vouchers and use them towards the cost of airport parking (which double up the value) or cinema trips, so they no longer have to cost a fotune.

I hope these money saving tips can help you save a good sum, or collect some point to spend on a luxury treat. Shopping around is the key to the best ways to save money and it's totally worth it - why pay more, if you don't need to?!

Holiday Hunting: Tips and Advice for a Great Vacation

Let's vacation it up!

So you want to get away: long haul or short haul, city break or beach trip, summer or winter - but you don't want it to cost the price a tourist pays (who doesn't love a low cost holiday?!) and you don't want to be clueless about the destination. Well I have gathered some details into this one blog post, which I hope will help! Many of my friends will know I manage to create a spreadsheet for anything I possibly can, so set about making one with your findings - it'll be great research for considering future trips!

Isla Contoy, Quintana Roo, Mexico - April 2014

1. Look at a map - where do you want to explore?
So I live in England. I know that short haul will mean Greece, Spain, Turkey, North Africa (Tunisia and Morocco), whilst long haul includes Thailand, the Caribbean, India and the UAE. If it's only a week I'm thinking of I will probably stay closer to home (May-September) otherwise long haul it will be! Once you've narrowed it down to about 3 destinations, check out Worldtravelguide here and type in the country you're considering. This is a great website to tell you basic holiday info such as if you need jabs before you go, what the public holidays are, the best time of year to visit, a brief history and much more. This should give you the 'need to know' information and possibly help narrow it down a bit more :-)

2. Destination weather and when to visit
To give you a sneak peek into the weather and when you might like to visit, type the country/city into good old Google followed by the word 'climate', and look at the image search - this should give you various graphs, so have a look at a few and you should get an idea on rainfall, minimum and maximum temperatures, how many hours of sun to expect, etc, like this:

3. Tips for cheap flights
If you're not going too far or for too long, you might find that you can book a flight and hotel/villa separately to avoid going with a tour operator and potentially paying more; great money saving tip. If so, get on to low cost airline websites such as Easyjet and Ryanair and do it yourself - it's a bit of extra organising but it's worth it to save those pennies. In our household we are big fans of Easyjet, because their hand luggage has a size limit but not a weight limit, so you can grab a cabin mini-suitcase and pack that for your journey. This means no hold luggage so it's a cheaper option and also means that at the other end you're not waiting an hour for your suitcase to appear at the baggage collection (yay)! Try and find accommodation with a washing machine and you can pack some washing tablets so you only need a few outfits for a week, the only problem will be trying to work out which of your amazing outfits to pack! Needless to say these low cost flights are great, but try to plan ahead, 5-9 months if at all possible, because prices only seem to go up in my experience.

4. Vacation websites to check out for great money saving trips
A good selection of build-it-yourself package holidays: Lowcostholidays, Sunmaster, Onthebeach
Some great places to look for accommodation: Holidaylettings, AirBnB, Trivago

5. Trip-advise pretty much EVERYTHING!
So you think you've found your dream hotel - the photos look professional and the amenities suit the whole family. First thing to do: get to Tripadvisor and see if it's a real winner. Tripadvisor is fantastic because it gives you the chance to hear from real life, everyday people that have actually been and can provides comments on their stay. Just don't forget to look at the good as well as the bad, and take into consideration when the review was posted. A hotel that might have been bad 4 years ago could well have improved.

6. Activities and attractions
You arrive ready to get some tourist adventures under your belt - it might be kayaking, visiting local ruins or exploring a tropical island that has lots of rare birds and fish. Shop around and take advantage of some great money saving deals! It's easy to settle for the first salesman that comes along with a number of excursions to sell, especially if you're travelling with a tour operator, and sure, the prices may seem reasonable, but head into town and have a look around, there are a lot of countries that expect you to haggle so the first price might not be the final price.

7. Currency
When looking for travel money I used to head to the local post office, but then I thought about searching online for the best price before our Mexico trip and the results were incredible. I headed to MoneySupermarket.com and opened up all the sites they suggested. I then looked for what £500 could get me in Mexican pesos on each, and the results were incredible. Here's an example of how much £500 could get me in UAE dirhams (based on 4 providers on 01/03/15):
Fairfx - £500.64 = 2760 dirhams
Travelex - £500 = 2723.25 dirhams
Post Office - £499.57 = 2700 dirhams
Sainsburys Bank - £500 = 2688.95 dirhams
ASDA Money - £500 = 2705.95 dirhams
Obviously the exchange rates are constantly changing so it's best to check a week before you're ready to make a purchase and then check again before you actually buy, but this example shows that for almost the exact same amount of money you can get an extra 70 dirhams (approx £12.70) of holiday money, and every little helps when it comes to money saving.

8. Learn the language
Buy a cheap phrasebook off the internet, a physical one or an audio one, and learn the basics of the language. This tip won't really save you any money but the locals will appreciate someone who is at least trying to absorb the culture whilst in another country, and they will respect you for it. Learn to say hello, good afternoon, thank you and good night - I think you'll find you enjoy it too!


9. Deals to be done in advance
If you know you're definitely going away to a country warmer than your own within the next 9 months, head to the shops during the low peak season for some great money saving opportunities. If you are going on safari in April, buy your suncream in November as they tend to have good deals on despite it being winter. And head to eBay during October to pick up maxi dresses and summer sandals at bargain prices, because not many other people will be after a summer wardrobe in the autumn.

I hope you've found this post useful! When it comes down to it, I believe it's all about planning in advance, taking the time to search and you can save a fortune (who doesn't love money saving ideas?!) - check out my previous travel post here to see what other deals I have done in 2015!

The Story Of Us - Homemade

I recently found a lovely gift idea online, but it was £20 (+ £4.90 delivery) and a fairly simple, but effective idea, so I decided to do my own at home for a much smaller cost.

The gift is called The Story Of Us and is done in a library card format detailing a timeline of key events with the giver and receiver, whether it's your boyfriend, sister, friend or other special person in your life. All you need is a frame (with a mount to give it a border if you wish), a piece of card and your timeline of special memories. It went with creamy colours to match our home decor.

Here is my result:

 

Obviously doing this yourself means you can play with the fonts of the events and also adjust the colours. Here is the original one I found if you were curious:

 

I would really recommend giving this a try - the finished result looks great, and I can't wait to give this to my partner :-) - a great gift idea for Valentine's Day, birthdays or holidays!

This is how we do it.... Holidays 2015 Vacation Time

Seeing the world is something really important to me, but with working full time and only getting 5 weeks off a year it can be tricky to fit in lots of worthwhile trips, not to mention the cost. Well I thought I would share with you all the cost of our 2015 holidays so you can see that yes, whilst vacations are luxuries and we can't always afford them, it doesn't always have to be crazy-expensive, if you shop around and if you often plan ahead, making some great money saving opportunities.

Holiday 1 (Skiing) - Saint-Gervais-Les-Bain, France. 4 adults, 24th January - 31st January 2015.
We booked flights with Easyjet (1 suitcase each and 1 set of skis per couple) from Bournemouth to Geneva £163.69 each return with seats being pre-booked.
The chalet we hired through www.holidayinalps.com (Chalet Baraque O'Neige, sleeps up to 7) - £155.25
Total per adult for flights and accommodation - £318.94

Of course if you are a skier (unlike myself, who prefers being wrapped up warm with Netflix and a good book), then you do have your ski pass on top of this, which can be costly - a good money saving tip is to see if you can order the ski pass in advance and you could save 10 or 20%. That said, Saint Gervais is a fab family resort only about an hour from Geneva airport, so it's great if you have kids, and the local patisseries (bakeries) do some pretty special treats.

Holiday 2 (City and Beach Beach Break) - Abu Dhabi, UAE. 2 adults, 26th April - 4th May 2015.
We booked this trip through Lowcostholidays to ensure money saving to the max - I get a small student discount there (1 suitcase weighing up to 30kg each is included in the cost) from Heathrow to Abu Dhabi £416 each return with seats being pre-booked, flying with Etihad Airways.
The hotel we booked is Novotel Abu Dhabi Al Bustan 4* Room Only - £149 each
Transfers were £17.50 each return and the discount I got worked out at £20.39 each (every little helps!)
Total per adult for flights, transfers and accommodation - £562.11

We have started to investigate the most cost effective way of seeing the sights, and have so far found that the Yas Marina F1 Circuit is free to walk around on Tuesday evenings - so we'll be doing that. Plus, with the world's biggest waterpark, I'm sure this will be a must too. Any way to be a money saving pro and I'm there!


Holiday 3 (City Break) - Venice, Italy. 2 adults, 6th May - 9th May 2015.
We booked flights with Easyjet (hand luggage only, cabin case with no weight limit) from London Gatwick to Venice Marco Polo £34.58 each return with seats being pre-booked (**further notes below on this)
The apartment we hired through AirBNB (Olimpia's Studio in the centre of Venice) - £122.50 each
Total per adult for flights and accommodation - £157.08

We will be getting the water taxi from the airport, and the owner of the apartment has sent some fantastic information with how to get around, things to see and do, and someone will be meeting us on arrival in Venice. The apartment also has kitchen facilities so we won't have to eat out three times a day, which can be very pricy in Italy. I've heard not to visit Venice in the summer months as it can be a bit smelly, so May should be a good time to go!
**We got a bargain with the flights as we booked early, but also because I used £50 worth of Nectar points towards the cost - definitely recommend if you are a regular online shopper, a great money saving method to online shopping.

Holiday 4 (City & Sun Break) - Marrakech, Morocco. 2 adults, 30th June - 4th July 2015.
We booked this trip through Lowcostholidays - again I get a small student discount there (hand luggage only, cabin case with no weight limit) from Bristol to Marrakech £58.28 each return with seats being pre-booked, flying with Easyjet (yup, they're our faves!).
The hotel we booked is Adam Park Hotel & Spa 5* Bed & Breakfast - £72.91 each
The discount was smaller this time and worked out at £2.57 each (every little helps!) Total per adult for flights and accommodation - £128.62

I'm really looking forward to relaxing by the pool during the day and exploring the city at night, when I hear it really comes to life!

Holiday 5 (the 'Country Bumpkin' family trip) - Bradworthy, near Bude, Devon, England. 2 adults plus one dog, th September - 12th September 2015.
We booked this trip through Choice Cottages - perhaps not the best money saving website BUT this is a place we visited last year, and Marley (our dog) absolutely loved it. The converted barn is very welcoming, quiet and private, so we had a relaxing stay and have decided to come back again. The property is called Swallow Parlour, and I would recomment it to anyone; it sleeps up to 4, and allows dogs and has wifi at small extra costs.

Total per adult for accommodation only - £177.23 (including dog and wifi costs)

You can find a video from our last trip to Bradworthy here, which is of Marley escaping into the sea: http://em-maria.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/its-dogs-life.html

Total holiday costs for 2015 - £1343.98 each, which for 5 trips away, doesn't seem too bad! Please get in touch if I can help you with anything :-) I would love to share my money saving ideas with you.

Let's Make Soy Candles! How To Quick Guide

So a friend of mine has recently discovered the thrill of making candles, instead of buying them! As women, we tend to love pretty things and things that smell nice, so combining the two to create a great gift/must have for the home is great.

I am a big fan of the Yankee Candles because they last for a long time and their fragrance is always so vibrant and strong. Today I have stepped into the world of creating my own, and it was fun and easy!

 

 

I purchased 2kg of soy wax (this has a lower melting point to other waxes and doesn't result in 'sooting' against the pot when burning), 20 wicks, 6 essential oils and recycled some cute ceramic pots I had in the cupboard from some wonderful puddings bought in Waitrose over the past few months. I had 5 orange pots, 3 blue and 2 clear, so I thought I would do one aroma in the orange pots and another in the blue and clear :-)

I poured the wax into 1 pot to work out the amount needed, and then doubled it. When weighing the wax in its pre-melted state it weighed 50g, so I doubled it to 100g. For the 10 pots I had I only need 1kg of soy wax, so there would be another kilo of soy wax and spare wicks for another day.

I put 10 wicks into the 10 pots and held them in place with wooden skewers.

I melted 500g of the wax in a pyrex jug for about 6 minutes on a medium-high heat in the microwave and it was done! For the orange jars I blended bergamot, sweet orange and vanilla essential oils to create a blend I've called Sweet Memories. I used about 24 drops of bergamot, 12 drops of sweet orange and 20 drops of vanilla. I stirred this through the wax with a wooden skewer to combine the frangrances and then poured into the pots. Once done I realigned the wicks as some had moved when pouring, and left them to set.

I then repeated the process for the blue and clear pots, which I did with 20 drops of rosemary, 10 drops of peppermint and 18 drops of lavender to create a blend I've called Atlantic Breeze.

I've now left the candles to set for 12 hours, trimmed the wicks and then will leave them for 2 full days before lighting them. It's a fab, quick process, which will make great birthday or Christmas gifts, and being homemade, they are of course cheaper than the shops. For these 10 candles, because I used pots I already had, these cost me about £2.20 each to make - yay!

"Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared."

Buddha

How to... Make a Date Jar and Date Ideas!

So today I set about jazzing up mine and my partner's dating life! I think we can all get stuck in the same rut of doing the same things together - cinema, dinner, go for a walk, go bowling, etc! So I set about buying bits n bobs on eBay and making a date jar!

The total cos of this mini-project was only around £3.93 plus some imagination and took about 2 hours altogether. I got the jar free from work, it is only a small jar, holding about 280g of chutney previously, but I've found others online for only a few pounds each.

So here's what I started with:

I made my date list, using the usuals we like to do plus some different things we wouldn't normally think of doing. I also made 5 categories to match the 5 different set of coloured wooden sticks I had and I allocated them each to one of the five categories!

Here are our date ideas:

Cinema

Go out for dinner

Have a takeaway

Cook together

Go on a picnic

Have a movie night in

Go shopping together

See a play

Have a massage night

Play video games

Listen to music together

Take the train/bus to London for the day

Go away somewhere new for the weekend

Go to Aqua Sana

Bake together

Play cards together

Work on a project together

Go go-karting

Go for a long walk

Watch the sun set

Make an ice cream sundae

Go to the zoo

Go to an arcade

Go bowling

Go to a comedy night

Make a romantic dinner at home

Go camping

Visit a food market

Try a new place for dinner

Visit a historic site nearby

Pottery/painting pottery

Visit a photo booth

Stargazing on a clear night

Visit an art museum

Go to an amusement park

Visit the aquarium

Play mini golf

Do a jigsaw puzzle

Recommend a book for each other and read them

Go to Stour Head

Road trip

Watch a documentary

Have a night of tickle back and chatting

Go to Splashdown

Chips and a walk on the beach

Go to a car boot

TV series marathon

Play badminton/tennis

Learn Origami

Pamper night at home

I then went about writing the date ideas on the sticks, followed by attaching a key to the jar, so we knew what coloured stick to pick depending on budget, time of year, etc.

And then to tie it up with some natural jute cord/twine :-) it looks fun and I can't wait to get down to choosing which stick first for our date!The best bit is whilst we can pick the category we don't know what activity it will be, and theres no putting it back if we dont feel in the mood.

 

"The word 'romance,' according to the dictionary, means excitement, adventure, and something extremely real. Romance should last a lifetime."

Billy Graham

Fly Me To.... Majorca (Mallorca Si?!)

Good morning people, I have returned from my mini-break with my friend!

To sum it up: good relaxation, great weather and even better company! There is nothing quite like jetting off for a short trip to lie under the sun and experience a touch of the Spanish language. If it were France one might say "Ooh-la-la" - I don't know what the Spanish version of this might be.

Both me and my friend wanted a cheap and cheerful break to somewhere not so far for 5 days, I searched for weeks and ended up avoiding a package holiday, instead choosing to book with Easyjet (because, you know, you can take your mini suitcase to save cost and not have to wait at the other end of the flight for the baggage to come through), searching for a good hotel that is not too pricey (I recommend searching with Trivago or Hotels Combined) and then searching for transfers on various local websites for the best deal, I recommend 3-4 so you can get a good range of quotes!

The best part is this trip only cost us £196 each, with a half board hotel (breakfast and dinner included) - the hotel was also an adults only hotel yay! So no screaming children splashing you :-)

Don't be afraid to book components separately - it's not as scary as it sounds and probably worked out £200 cheaper each so proves it's definitely worth investigating.

Alas please find some snaps below of my trip, Mallorca es muy hermoso!

"A buen entendedor, pocas palabras bastan"
"To someone with good understanding, only a few words are necessary"

Sunny Sunny Holiday Wahey!

So just a quick one to say I'm off on my girly trip to Majorca tomorrow for sun, sea and sunbathing wahoo! Will update you all on my return.

Currently my mood is something between happy and in pain with excitement :-/

“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.”

Robert Louis Stevenson

Shaftesbury Festival 2014 - Gold Hill Cheese Race

What a fantastic day! I hope everyone else has had a great day today, especially as it started miserable and grey and has turned our sunny, warm and clear blue skies.

We had Shaftesbury Festival today, which is a really fab town event, everyone seems to get involved. I always thought it might be 5 stalls selling arts and crafts, but I was wrong. I went last year and was blown away by how 'all-out' the town goes. Food, clothing, crafts and gift stalls fill the high street and on Park Walk (a footpath area with an incredible view) even more to do, things for the kids including face painting and games, and even cookery demonstrations. This year when I saw the dates it was on I had it down as a must immediately.

I took lots of photos to show the treats we had in store :-)

This is Park Walk with lots of stalls, lots of local produce!

These cupcakes we a must try and they were wonderul! www.bryscupcakes.co.uk

   

Bought a selection of goodies from the Godminster Organic stall for Charlie as he was working all day. Here we have their fruit cake, chutney, digestive biscuits and heart shaped waxed cheddar - 4 of the best products by one of the best local companies! www.godminster.com

And finally these photos are from the big cheese races that take place. GIANT cheeses weighing about 20kg are donated by a local company and from 11:30 a cheese race happens every hour. The contestants have to each carry their cheese down the bottom of the famous landmark Gold Hill (from the Hovis advert many years ago) and race to the top! It sounds silly, yet a lot of people come to watch and a lot of people volunteer to take part!

It's wonderful having such a great local community that we can make these events possible, and the sunshine definitely helped make it even more enjoyable today :-)

Thanks for reading, be back soon!

"I went into a French restaraunt and asked the waiter, 'Have you got frog's legs?' He said, 'Yes,' so I said, 'Well hop into the kitchen and get me a cheese sandwich.'"

Tommy Cooper