Tales of the unexpected with The Boy, my pride and joy.
I'm a bit of a fiend for reusable shopping bags, in fact my husband thinks that I haven't quite grasped the concept of them because we have so many. My problem is that some of the prettiest or quirkiest ones aren't actually functional! I also use them a lot in school for carrying books and resources back and forth, and corners get bashed.
When I was offered the opportunity to review Trolley Bags recently, I jumped at the chance. Read on and you'll soon see why!
Before The Boy was born when I was a full-time primary school teacher, I found that I had to be ultra organised when it came to Christmas. While the vast majority of the second half of the Autumn Term is given over to preparing the children for the magical events with cards, calendars, concerts and chaos, it was very easy to completely dismiss the event when 'off-duty' in the evenings and weekends.
I discovered that I needed to be über organised to avoid the festive season completely passing me by; I always wrote my (January sales) Christmas cards in the October half-term, bought the special edition stamps as soon as they were available and made a note in my phone to send them on a certain day. Wrapping paper and ribbon would be bought and set aside with scissors and sellotape ready for the evening of gift-wrapping with a sneaky Baileys. However, the actual present buying invariably happened when I 'broke-up' from school and I'd end up buying anything and everything, spending far too much money.
Now that I'm working part-time and I'm able to spend more time thinking sensibly about the whole malarky, and I get a chance to enjoy it through The Boy's enthusiasm. We've started making Christmas cards and talking about the special things that we'll do together as a family. I've also got all of his presents sorted out in the spare bedroom, bar small stocking fillers, etc.
The one who I have nothing for is Mr. TBaM! Whoops!
Problem is, that I have no idea what on Earth to buy for him. I know he'd love a Kinect thingy but I'm on a limited budget now and he can carry on dreaming about that. It's at times like this that I settle down with some of the money-saving websites and start scouring them for presents that would appeal to him, buying electronics online is so easy. As he's just upgraded his phone to an iPhone 5, I think he'd really like this iPhone controlled helicopter, that is if he could wrestle it from The Boy (a technical genius in the making!).
However, maybe I'd be better off getting him something that benefits me instead of annoying me? As he never seems to cook anymore I think perhaps this personalised cookbook would be a good idea; lots of easy recipes for him to surprise me with when I get home from work after him!
Let's face it, I'll probably end up buying him a yard-long Jaffa Cakes tube and a packet of Toffifees like last year!
This post contains sponsored links.
Having worked in a large high street store for three years, I am not a fan of clothes shopping. At least not for myself. I much more prefer the luxury of sitting back on the sofa, turning on the laptop and doing my shopping through the Internet. I'm still not so keen on buying for myself, but I am rather partial to buying extremely cute clothes for The Boy.
I've heard a lot about Boden over the past two years, but I must confess that I'd never really considered them as I had considered them a little more expensive than I could afford. While they are just outside my price range, in reality they aren't that much more expensive than Next or Marks and Spencer, and if you can find a discount code for a company like this before purchasing online or instore, then it's even better. My Voucher Codes is one of those places that supplies codes for frugal mummies such as myself.
I was asked if I'd like to try some of the much talked about Boden clothing, and of course I jumped at the chance to deck my little man out in good quality clothing. I chose a beautifully thick Guernsey fisherman style jumper for him, a pair of vintage jeans and (this is what he loves the best) a tomato ketchup top. He's addicted to the red sauce and I couldn't let that one pass by!
The Guernsey jumper is incredibly thick and soft, with 80% lambswool it's unsurprisingly warm. The distressed jeans have a zip which completely flummoxed The Boy at first (he's used to pull-up trousers) but he managed them really easily, and the grin on his face when he saw the ketchup t-shirt was fantastic.
The order (including postage and packaging) would have initially been £74.00, but applying the MyVoucherCodes discount brought it down to £61.40. This would have given a saving of £12.60 in total; 10% discount and free delivery. I will definitely be checking on MyVoucherCodes for fashion discount codes before purchase online or instore in the future!
To take advantage of the 10% discount code available on all orders at Boden (plus free delivery), nip over to My Voucher Codes before 28th October 2012.
I received these items for the purpose of this post. My opinion is honest and unbiased.
For the past year in Wales, we've had to pay for carrier bags. It's only 5p a bag, but if you're doing a monthly shop in a supermarket and are anything like me, then that could soon mount up and you could be paying £1 just for bags while shopping. Therefore, everyone now uses bags for life or jute shopping bags, which are excellent and sturdy.
To be honest, I'd been using reusable shopping bags since I came across the rather cool designs on Super-U bags in France seven years ago. Sometimes I'd forget to grab some from the boot, or become a little enthusiastic when picking things from the shelf but by and large, I am an Eco warrior and reuse!
Over the years our jute bags have become quite worn and battered, they also take a lot of space up in the boot and trolley. I've been asked to review a Trolley Dolly Primo bag, which I'm a little excited about. I don't think it's normal to be this excited about it but it is what it is and I squealed a little too loudly when I opened the packaging!
The Trolley Dolly bag is a revolutionary shopping bag which is sure to make any shopping experience far easier and less stressful, keeping everything together in one place. Resembling a normal handbag; inside the main section are coloured, strong, nylon shopping bags (in the Primo bag there are nine: seven vest, one box and one bottle) and four mesh bags for loose fruit and vegetables. There is a front pocket with a pen loop, a coupon or loyalty card pocket, and space for purse and keys. On the back there is a clear, plastic pocket to put shopping lists which can be easily seen at all times while shopping. The niftiest bit is that the Velcro holding the handles together is incredibly strong which means that it can suspend from the trolley's handle to access bits and pieces, the shopping list and keep an eye on valuables.
I'm really excited by the Trolley Dolly bag, not only because I think that Mr. TBaM will make more of an effort to actually return the bags to the correct place with this (he's always leaving them in the porch!), but because it's so practical, compact and convenient. The Boy is going to love helping me shop with it too!
Using the Trolley Dolly was incredibly easy and genuinely helpful: The Boy loved helping me pick the fruit and vegetables out and bag them, they weighed virtually nothing so didn't add to the cost at the till; the shopping list was easily visible at all times, which made it so much easier to stick to what I should have been buying; and the handles on the shopping bags are long enough to tied together to stop the food falling out and rolling around the boot.
When I posted a photograph on Instagram, I was asked about how strong the bags were in relation to bottles. They take about 13kg in each bag, but how does that translate to normal shopping?
(Please note that I'm not an alcoholic! I had to sift through various cupboards to find these!)
The Trolley Dolly Primo bag retails for £34.99 from ZPM.
If you enter the discount code THEBOYANDME at checkout, you can receive 15% off a Primo or Eco bag.
I was sent this product to review. My opinion is honest and unbiased.
Right so in I traipsed to the capital city of Wales with its plethora of shops. I found a parking space really easily and we were in our first shop within twenty minutes of leaving home. Shopping in Cardiff at Christmas had never been so easy!
But the first shop didn't have what I wanted. And bearing in mind this was Waterstones and a fairly popular title, I wasn't impressed. They wouldn't have any back in until January.
The next few shops were entered with the soul aim of trying to find a nice top for Saturday night (Tots 100 Christmas Party) and I failed.
The following shop was Next in an effort to buy some Christmas tops, new trousers and a pair of boots for The Boy.
So having struggled down twenty steps to one of the only places that has food suitable for children (not every restaurant has to be sushi or fast food trash you know town-planners) and then had a kindly assistant help me back up, frozen our little fingers, toes and bottoms off (mine not so little), and become generally hacked off with trying to find a toilet suitable to use with The Boy, we came home.
And this is why I am now sat on the sofa with Amazon, Next and Simply Be open in separate tabs, with the television on, central heating and a cherry liquor chocolate warming the cockles of my heart and stomach! Because shopping in real-life shops sucks and the Internet is as popular as it is for a reason!
When I became a mum and went on maternity leave it took a little while to adjust to the drop in income. Then suddenly, the budgeting and money-saving techniques which I'd witnessed and learnt as a child, from my own mum, kicked in. Most food was home-made from scratch, coupons were snipped, bulk purchases made in cash & carry stores, online offers and codes sought out; bargains galore were hunted down. I was a woman possessed and the Internet became a powerful tool in my money-saving mission; through it I learnt about a variety of sites that encourage such behaviour.
One of my money-saving mechanims was cash and carry facilities. Now obviously, it helps to bulkbuy consumables like kitchen roll or jam (we are fond of the strawberry squidgy stuff and it's cheaper than in the supermarket!) because we go through them at a fair old pace. Other things like handcream and spices also make sense to buy in bulk.
Thirty baby thermometers? Not so much really.
Which is a shame because they are always cheaper than in the shops and it grieves me to not be able to save money just because I can't use 29 other thermometers. Surely I must know someone who could do with them?
This is where you need someone else to have thought of the same thing. Wouldn't it be good if there was a website where you could join together with those other people who wanted to take advantage of the huge reduction through bulk buying?
Well there is, it's called BuyaPowa.
And quite frankly it does what is says on the label. BuyaPowa searches out popular 'wants' and works to making those bulk-buy discounts happen. They approach the companies and obtain a fairly good starting discount price and then through 'co-buying' they bring together shoppers into a single bulk-buying transaction. By clicking on the 'join co-buy' button you become one of those (normally) one hundred people who can take advantage of this limited-time offer. The best bit (and I have honestly scoured the site and see no 'catch') is that when more people join the co-buy, the price drops.
For example, BuyaPowa currently have a co-buy on offer (ends tomorrow morning). It's for a Tommee Tippee Baby Healthcare Kit which contains a digital oral thermometer, toothbrush, brush and comb, scissors, nail clippers, two emery boards and a nasal aspirator (invaluable at this time of year). This kit normally retails at £15.49, but BuyaPowa's starting price was £9.50. Now mathematics is not my forte but that's clearly a bargain already!
However, that's no longer the price. It's now£6.50!
Oh and did I mention that there's free shipping on that item?
Anyone who has joined in the co-buy above will get that baby essential kit for the bargain price of £6.50. And what's even more impressive is that the person who manages to share the co-buy and bring in more buyers than other people in the bargain will receive their item for free.
There are three stages of price-drops:
There is also the option to request a co-buy through one of three ways; either through requesting an item or registering your interest in previously requested products and categories, or by adding their BuyaPowa widget to your toolbar so that when you shop online you can click it for an item. I've got mine nestling next to my 'Add to Wish List' widgetty doo-dah.
And because the lovely folk at BuyaPowa are quite clued up about these things, they've made it easier to contact them on Facebook or twitter.
So the question that BuyaPowa want to know from you is, which products would you like to buy for less?
This is a sponsored post. Content and my thoughts are my own, and I do actually think it's a clever system.
I'm going to moan. I don't care, it's my blog and I'll rant if I want to!
I find it hard enough coping with the incompetent or ignorant customers who misuse designated car spaces as it is without the staff adding to it.
Like today in Asda when I pulled into the last remaining P&C space. I reversed in so I could get The Boy out on the side of the walkway, which also gave me more space to get him into the trolley. An old coffin-dodger walked up with his puffed-up self-important neon vest on and asked me to move over a space. I politely enquired why and he said because the workman needed that space so he could get his tools out.
WHAT?!
I politely pointed out that this was a P&C space to which he said that the man needed it so he could get his tools out. I lost it. I impolitely pointed out that this was a space for parents with children to park in and that I had a child to get out the car and 'NO! I would NOT be moving'.
Having got my child out of the car, I saw him moaning to a colleague. I saw red and went and very loudly complained at the store manager who apologised profusely.
Oh and on the way out of the store I saw the workman. He was pushing his small toolbox over in a baby-carrier trolley (I know). No, I didn't mow him down with my trolley although I felt like it! I like dodgems…
I'm not a girly girl. Yes, I wear make-up and, when I have the opportunity, wear my hair down. Yes, I like nice jewellery. I don't do pink. I don't do fluffy. I don't do simpering female. I am the youngest of four children, the eldest two are boys. I'm a bit of a tom-boy.
Chick-flicks? Metal Mummy, really? Cool!
How contrary am I? I actually do like a good chick-flick, as long as they are the empowering women ones, the ones where the women aren't complete and utter simpering pathetic females throughout. I do like a good song and dance routine, but I've already talked about Strictly Ballroom and Moulin Rouge a few weeks ago. And I broke the rules in Week Two, so am limited to my choice here. Plus Dirty Dancing's already been 'done'.
I'm choosing my other favourite:
All the classic lines:
Which leads me onto my most favourite scene in the entire film:
