Dining Room Update

Ok so I have lived in this house for 5 years and have never been able to decide what to do with the dining room. It always looks dark, cluttered and uninviting. 

Then a fortnight ago I came across this awesome wallpaper, I absolutely loved it.

I found it on Ebay, thought perfect I'll put the paper in the recess next to the chimney breast, paint the chimney breast and the other 3 walls. It'll look fab. I ordered two rolls, and had £5 off voucher for ebay so cost £18. Perfect. I thought I have some white paint in the shed so I'll get started whilst I wait for delivery.

Pulled the wallpaper that was on the chimney breast off ready to paint and was left with this:

1 very untidy, needs a replaster chimney breast. Definitely not a quick paint with white emulsion job. I don't have the skills or the money to fix this, especially as this is a rented home and I plan on moving in a couple of years as I aim to buy my own home. (long term plan, details coming soon!)

This means a change of plan- I'll just wallpaper across all of the area you can see in the picture above.

I forgot to take before pictures of this room, that's how much I disliked it! In the alcove on the left of this picture is where I had my freezer (kitchen is too tiny to fit a fridge/freezer in it. The alcove on the right is where I put my dining table and 6 chairs. The opposite corner to where the freezer is, so behind me and to the left where I stood to take this picture is where I had the fridge/ freezer, then the opposite corner to the table, so on my right and behind me when I took this picture is the bookcase and my desk. There never seemed to be enough room and it was not a comfortable space to use. So the whole room ended up a dumping ground.

Whilst I was painting I came up with a cunning plan to fix this. 

All the walls that were not papered were painted white to allow for the room to appear brighter, the wallpaper has potential to make it look dark so I wanted to balance this out.

This si the finished room:

I absolutely love it. I have spent all my time in here/ the garden since I finished it. I smile everytime I walk in. I love how I have laid the space out and it feels less cluttered. I haven't taken any of our stuff out, it's just better organised.

It's not the easiest room to photograph, but hopefully that gives you an idea of how much better it looks.

I did have to buy a third roll of wallpaper, as I was one drop short after having to paper the chimney breast as well as the alcoves.

Total costs:

Wallpaper- 3 rolls= £30

Gloss for woodwork- tin £8- I used half so £4

White emulsion- I used half a of a huge tub which cost £12 so £6

Wallpaper paste £1.

I have used all of our own furniture and didn't buy anything new. I have the light fitting from a previous room decorating.

Total cost for project: £41.00

I'm very happy with that as it has given us a fantastic looking room that we are all now using properly.

Strange times

It is very strange in the world at the moment. I am working from home for the majority of the time, just going in a couple of days a week to care for the children of other key workers. We are only allowed out once a day for exercise so I go out for one dog walk a day and make sure Teen-girl comes with us. This means I haven't been running for ages.
The Manchild has taken himself off to his girlfriend's parents whilst this is all going on as his asthma is bad, he has had several chest infections already this winter and with my job I pose a big risk to him. It's very strange without him home.
I have spent time doing up our little house. I have decorated the bathroom, decorated the kitchen and spent time sorting the garden in the effort to have a more productive vegetable garden this year. I am missing a few seeds I would like to have planted; tomatoes, peas, green beans. I might be bale to get some the next time I head into town for food, but I am hoping not to need to do that for a while.
I have planted kale, lettuce, carrots, pumpkins, various herbs, cabbages and cauliflowers so hopefully some of these will germinate although it may be a challenge as some of the seeds I have used have been lurking in the shed for a few years. It's all a bit of an experiment.
The garden is looking tidier, still more to do on it but it is getting there.

Weeding with my helper

Some old seeds planted with optimism.

My helper laying the weed membrane.

What are you doing during this strange time period? I hope you are keeping well.

Garden

While we are distancing from the world I am working to make improvements to our home. I started today with the garden. I have cut the free grass, it was so long it took me nearly two hours but its done now.
.

I then weeded some of the vegetable beds. I built them from old pallets when I first moved here, they are starting to rot now, I'm thinking of removing them and just having them as open beds now they are quite well established. 

Once is pulled the weds out I found some lettuce, I sowed the seeds at the end of last summer and nothing happened but now I have some

Made me feel very happy to find this. 

Tomorrow I need to do some more weeding. I'd like to plant some seeds as well but I have ran out of compost so I'm trying to decide what's best to do now. 

How are you filling the days? 

Can't believe my eyes

Now before anyone thinks this is a single girls rant against Valentines day I can promise you that it is not, I have never liked the pressure when in a relationship to buy the best present/have the best evening etc all because of the date.

I popped to the shop this afternoon for our weekly shop once the boiler engineer had been and made my house toasty again. While in the supermarket I noticed that they had 3 apples packaged into a heart shape for you to have a healthy treat with you valentine- for £2!! It was 3 apples.

On the way out I noticed the reduced price Valentines flowers- originally at £15-£20 on half price. I like to have flowers in the house but these weren't anything special just bulk standard bouquets that you would usually see in the supermarket for  fraction of the cost- they just had a red/pink cellophane.

I wasn't going to post all of this until I just signed into my email and found this:

Get a grip! It's a car I would NOT buy a valentines present for a car. If you want to try and sell me things for my car DO NOT package it up as a valentines gift.

It surely can't only be me that things are going way too far??

What a boring grump I must come across today- sorry. Sunshiny post tomorrow?

Happy Halloween

I seem to have been super busy since I started back at school. Hardly a moment to catch my breath before onto the next whirling event.

I am still here and trying to keep a tight grip on our finances. I am watching the news waiting for the
pinch to hit harder!

We are still managing to have some fun though, and still sticking to minimal spending.

We went to the local farm for our annual pumpkin pick- we left with just a  few! Lots of soup will be made to keep us warm through winter! LOL

 Stephanie has taken part in some local running events.

 We went out for a delicious meal to celebrate my 35th birthday. Ok so not the most frugal choice but soo tasty. I think this one warrants a post all of its own another day!

We have also had my baby boys 17th birthday. The car in the distance will give a clue to his present this year! Again, a post for another day!

So much to catch up on but now I have a garden full of children asking for lunch- left over party food from last night it is!

home improvements

I have been slowly getting organised to improve the decor in our home. both children's bedrooms have been transformed now it is the turn of my bedroom. When we moved in I said that I could  live with the downstairs decor but upstairs needed changing first. Obviously over time I will change all of the rooms to make them our own. I have bought a tub of paint a month over the last couple of months so that I can decorate my room without it being a large expense at once. Yesterday I bought the final tin- the gloss and came straight home to get started. I have now completed 2 coats of gloss on all the woodwork  in my room, except the door which I want to lay flat to decorate preferably in the garden. I need to sand it down before I can paint it but the sander has just had an emergency repair. The velcro part that the pads cling to came off with the sand paper. I have used my trusty glue gun in hope that I can make the 14 year old sander last a while longer. Once the glue has had time to dry then game on- I will be getting this room finished.
A sneak preview of what it was like before (and partly is now!)

A wonderful wallpaper totally not to my taste! Accompanied by 

Bright red walls. Not quite the tranquil and calm place I envisage my bedroom to be. With the help of my ancient steamer the wall paper was down in a jiffy. Once the woodwork is dry I will fix the walls.

First with several coats of this boring white paint to hopefully hide the red. Then a splash of this;

The colours I am hoping to instil from accessories which I will buy as money allows I am wanting nice purple items, I shall be on the lookout in charity shops and budget shops to find these.

I am in the process of trying to decide whether or not to lay the old blue carpet (new carpet is out of my current budget) or to keep the floor boards bare. They are in very good condition and look good. Just a little sanding needed as there are small paint splashes from previous decoration. I haven't quite decided yet. What are your views on this? 

How do you decorate and add your own personality to a home  on a budget?

Savings

I have saved the overpayment for the car for the January already see here for my plans with this, so I have turned my focus to save an emergency fund as prompted by Elaine over at mortgage free in 3.
I had already began to think about setting up one, using an old passbook savings account
I have at the building society. Reading through Elaine's January challenge has prompted me to pull on my big girl knickers and get on with it!
I have my notebook sorted;

that little grid has 100 squares on it- £5.00 per square every time I send money across I colour in the corresponding amount of squares- I like to see how quickly they are filling up- I'm already on my second row!I can't wait until they are full, I like to meet a challenge.
I have also been recording in my little diary what I spend each day;

and any no spend days- I have already completed 5 no spend days this year. Only 235 no spend days to go to reach my target for 2014!

How are you goals for 2014 coming along?

Insurance

This month my car insurance is due. This means that I spend a while on various comparison websites trying to get the cheapest deal possible.

This year I was pleasantly surprised. The quote I have received from the insurers I have been with previously increased every year, despite me not having any accidents/ speeding points or other offences which may affect my premiums. This means that I never stay with the same insurer, I change yearly. The worst has to be the year an insurer wanted to double my premium!

So once I received the renewal letter I started to search all those sites we know the adverts for, then I looked on quidco and topcashback to see what their searches all say. Even taking into account the cash back available from these sites. My current insurer are the cheapest this year- my premium has even gone down! I am so pleased. As I pay monthly it works out at  around £4.00 a month cheaper this year. I am a happy bunny.

Making the most of it!

As a family we hold several membership cards;
1.national trust, costs me £55.50 per year
 2.English heritage, £37.00 per year
3.gym membership 18.00 for me £10.00 for Dylan per month so yearly costs- £336!
4. zoo membership. £23 for me £19.95 per child (although Dylan's dad paid for his) so cost me £31.95 per year.

So for memberships I am spending a whopping £460.45! Put like that it is a massive amount, now these are all due at different times of the year so I am able to spread them out, but still as a yearly cost that is a lot. I need to know I am getting my moneys worth from each of these.
This year I am planning on tracking our use of each of these to make sure that they are worthwhile for our family. I am adding a page on the blog here so that I can track their use, each time we use one of these cards I will track the visit and the cost had we not got our membership. They need to at least balance with the cost of the membership- although preferably I want them to be saving me money.

Focus

I am determined to maintain focus on being frugal. I do want to still have fun days out though. Back in September I went on a day out to the zoo with family, the entrance fee gives you a year long pass to the zoo so today we went to the zoo. Stephanie wasn't with me when we went before so I had to pay for her today. However when we went to Disneyland we didn't spend all of the money I had saved. I changed up the 75 Euros we had left- it came out at around £55.00- not bad! So I used some of this to pay for Stephanie's entrance fee.

We saved money by taking a pack up. No money spent on food/drink.

We got to see lots of animals very closely. We were following one of the rangers around as he was feeding the big cats. Stephanie was fascinated that they eat horse!

As the zoo was not very busy we were able to get close to all signs/ animals. Stephanie really enjoyed reading all the information boards.

 

We warmed up in the car afterwards with a hot chocolate from the flask I had made.

 

On the way home we popped in Tesco. I got some fruit, milk, yoghurt, bread. I also got a large box of Maryland cookies for £1.50. They have been put away for when we go camping later in the year.

I spent £17.48. So less than the £20.00 I had budgeted for this weeks shopping. I am aiming to spend no more than £20.00 each week. Which means I am going to transfer £2.52 into my 'squirrel account'. For more information on this hop on over to Elaine's blog she explains it here. I am following Elaine's "30 days of thrift" throughout January in order to help build up an emergency fund. I am 9% of the way towards my goal already.

I then filled the car- I have budgeted for £30.00 of fuel per week. I filled up the tank completely the other day to get me started. I plan on keeping the tank full by topping up weekly. So then if I have a week when money really does get tight I shall be able to get to work without worry as I know there is enough in the tank already. I filled it up on the 31st December completely. Today I topped up to have a full tank again I put in 17.98. As it is under the 30.00 level I have sent over the change to my savings- another £12.02 to add to the emergency pot. bringing the total in their up to £58.69! So I am 11% towards my target. Looking at it this week makes it seem so much easier to get to the £500 target. Shifting small amounts of money as and when it's available.

 

 

Bucket list item number 30

Last night we decided to have a campout in our living room, this is item number 30 on my  bucket list.
My niece and nephew also came to stay so this was great fun for the children. The littlest is only 3 and managed to stay awake until just before 9, The girls went to sleep shortly after 10. Dylan decided it was uncomfortable and went up to bed once my nephew had fallen asleep!

we watched the Disney film brave and had home made popcorn in bed before we went off to sleep. I shared the pictures with my sister on Facebook and now have envy from my other nieces and nephews that didn't come. Apparently we will be doing this more now. I'm pleased as it is fun and the children loved it. I was a little worried that they would be uncomfortable and wake up in the night demanding beds- in fact they didn't wake until 8 am! Result!

|So items on the bucket list are happening, which is fantastic I like that we are being able to have different experiences. Stephanie has added an item of her own- she wants to go to the play park in the dark. The weather has been rather wet to enjoy a play park with out getting soaked at the moment, however, it is dry today- who knows what we will do this evening especially if the weather stays dry :-)

food glorious food!!

I love food, and I have been busy yesterday cooking, and today listing items on selling sites. Her'es the food calling to me at the moment;

Mince tarts made with home-made mince meat. Even Dylan likes them!

 

 

Cheesy swirls, loved by us all!

 

And slow cooked lamb stew- all the random veggies I had thrown in together this morning.

 

With dumplings added from an approved food shop.

 

All cooked with food I had in no extras needed!

 

 

 

A much better day

Our day might have started a bit fraught but it was much better. Stephanie and I went to Lullingstone Roman villa. She has been learning about Romans at school so we went to have a look at the real thing. It is part of the English Heritage properties so we didn't have to pay to get in or for the car park, saving £9.90 for entrance fees and £2.50 for the car park without our membership this would have been an unaffordable day out at the moment.

reading the information boards

trying the clothes on

 

 

 

Once we had finished we went back to the car for lunch.

enjoying her soup- flasks are great aren't they! Once we had finished lunch we left and saw signs for a castle so once we found somewhere to park we went to have a look. It doesn't matter how many castles we have seen previously this child always loves to visit more!

 

This one is more of a shell than a castle, there is not a huge amount of it left, it had been argues over and fell into disrepair many centuries ago.

Stephanie was horrified to read that parts of the roman villa had been taken apart in order to build the castle. I had to explain that the villa didn't have the same status back when the castle was first built- it was just like recycling the materials. She understood a little better then.

 

We came home and then had dinner. Dylan has decided to come home just for tonight. He is off to his Dad's tomorrow as he doesn't want to come to the football or fireworks.

 

Now I am off to sit in front of the tv with my knitting I feel the need for something to switch off my brain!

making money

Today I have spent a large portion of the day looking into ways for me to save/make money. I have seen lots of other bloggers saying that they have used quidco to earn extra cash. So today I have signed up, I did some Christmas shopping and have earned around £3.00 cash back. I then switched my gas and electricity supplier- something that has been on my to do list for a little while. This has earned me £25.00 cash back. Not bad for a little while spent browsing the net.
I also used my nectar/clubcard where appropriate which means I have more points to save up for our trips out when there are enough there.

I have some more money making schemes I want to organise this week; I have some items to list on eBay and some clothes I want to take to the 'cash for clothes' outlet near my current supermarket of choice.

Chessington World of Adventures.

This is our BIG day out. For years my family have all gone to Chessington as a group, starting back when I was about 11 or 12. For various reasons it has happened more infrequently the last few years. This year we went again. It is Stephanie's first time there. She loved it, Dylan had a fantastic day. In fact everybody did. The youngest member of our group was just 8 weeks old, the oldest well let's just say in his 50's- I may get into trouble if I say anymore!!

We started the day with a MacDonald's breakfast, a very rare treat in our house! We then met up with various aunts/uncles/cousins/sisters/nieces/nephews. There were 17 of us in total.

Entrance to Chessington (and all the Merlin group theme parks) is extortionate! £43 each for me and Dylan, £35 for Stephanie. Way out of my budget at a total of £121.00. That's before anything else. However I had enough points on my nectar card to take advantage of their double up offer earlier in the month to get 2x £40 entrance vouchers for the day. Bringing down the cost of entrance for me and Dylan to £3.00 each. I also had a half price voucher from a packet of Kit Kats which I used to get Stephanie in for £17.50. So entrance fee for the three of us brought down to a much more reasonable £23.50. That's more like it!

Stephanie on the bubbleworks with my uncle, she absolutely loved this ride and soaked us all by putting her hand in the fountains the whole way round.

This I Dylan, Stephanie, me and my cousin on the Dragon falls ride. Stephanie did not like this one, it made her cry-whoops!

 

She went for much gentler rides after this.

We ate in one f the restaurants in the park. They used to have a fried chicken place here, which was reasonably priced so we were heading there. They have changed it to a chicken place- a kind of like Nando's but not as nice! For the three of us to eat it came to £26.00.

We went on lots of rides, taking it in turns to wait with those not big enough to go on some of them. Or taking turns in taking on those that wanted to go on but needed an adult in the instance of my heavily pregnant sister and littlest nephew. I got to spend lots of time with him yesterday as he wasn't confident to o on with many of the other adults on the rides, as he doesn't see them as often and he is super shy.

WE ended the day by a quick mooch in the gift shop, each of us chose a pen total cost £8.00. we also got some doughnuts- £3.00.

 

Total cost for the day £54.50, well under the original entrance fees of £121.00. I will be saving my nectar points again to fund us having this fantastic day out again next summer.

Mote Park.

We came home from my sister's house on the Wednesday, her and my niece caught a lift on our car and came to stay with us. The Thursday was spent visiting various family members. Then Friday we went swimming in the morning then met my brother, sister, her partner and 2 children at More Park for a picnic and afternoon of fun. We walked around the park for a little letting the children chase and run around. Then decided to go on a boat ride.
Here we all are just off out onto the lake. My sister decided that at 37 weeks pregnant she would be safer watching us, my brother waited with her.
We had great fun, Dylan and Billy steered 'the swan' and managed to crash us into the weeping willow at the side! LOL
Then we took our shoes off and paddled our feet in the lake, very refreshing it was a warm day.
We finished the day off by having an ice cream before heading home.
Total spend £4 for the boat (it was £12 split between the 3 families) ice cream and drinks £8.50. total £12.50 for the day. (swimming is free as our council have under 11's swim free and Dylan and I get swimming included in our gym memberships.

Blackpool

While we were at my sister's house I asked for us to have a trip to Blackpool. This is one of the items on my Bucket list. So I am very pleased we got to do it.

The Blackpool Tower, we didn't go up as we were trying to have a budget day, it would have cost a lot for us all to go up. Maybe next time.

The tide was in when we arrived so we spent some time eating our picnic and letting the children play on the big stones.

 

 Once the tide went out we had a paddle and a dig on the sand.

Then we ended up in the arcade as we couldn't find any toilets. My two were pleased as I gave them 50p each and they made it last until we left. We spent over an hour in there, they have learnt which games are worth playing.

Then we went back down onto the beach and the smaller children all had a donkey ride. Stephanie loved tehm and now wants a job as a donkey ride person!

Then it was time for an ice cream before home. Well the children had ice creams, us adults had hot chocolate.

 

We got the train to Blackpool using our family rail card, costing  a total of £18 for me and my 2. We spent £4.00 on ice creams, £2.50 on my hot chocolate. When we arrived I realised we had forgotten our buckets and spades so spent £6 buying more, and £2 on rocks for their cousins who didn't come with us. So a total of £32.50 for our day. Oh no, I forgot the donkey ride- £35.00. Still a bargain day and another item off the bucket list :-)