New School Shoes & Beach Trip | 5 Frugal Things post 70

New School Shoes shopping!

Yeah to first full week of the Easter holidays. It has gone really quickly so far, mainly because I am trying to cram in as much stuff as possible. Doing things with the children as well as Mrs Mummypenny work. Work doesn’t stop over the Easter holiday just because I have the kids at home.  New school shoes shopping this week too!

These holidays  snuck up on me, as in I don’t plan much beyond the next couple of weeks, so suddenly it was the holidays. But I quite like the spontaneity of this, it makes the days far more exciting!

Easter weekend ended with an afternoon drinking red wine at our friends and then Easter Monday saw me getting quite a chunk of work done, then went for a long, muddy walk with my neighbour Lucy and our boys. The mud very deep and my boys decided to just walk through it in their trainers. Still they had fun, I was wearing my wellies so was fine.

I have had some frugal success this week, but looking at my spending diary tells me that I have actually spent quite  around £200 this week. Oh. You see what happens when you write everything down then add it up. You get the truth of your spending. Some it was essential, but most of it wasnt. I will make more of an effort next week to spend less.

The terms ends and yet another trip to get school shoes is needed. Does anyone else have this problem where their children ruin their shoes, scuffed, sole coming away, every term? It does my head in, so I refuse to buy expensive shoes because the same thing happens. I have tried them all, Clarks, Startrite, £40 a pair and still ruined by the end of each term.

I now go to Sports Direct and get black trainers for my boys, they normally cost around £20 per pair of the plain black Nike’s or Adidas trainers, but not this week. Hurrah there was 20% off. I didn’t even notice the signs and got a very pleasant surprise when the sales assistant told me the price. Three new pairs of school shoes shoes cost me £42.

Reading The Cosmic Ordering Service – A guide to Realising your dreams

My above mentioned muddy walk friend, Lucy, has lent me this book to read. Number one, its a short 100 page read. Big tick. Number two, Lucy thinks this book is amazing. Another big tick, she has told me about it maybe 5 times! We are both big believers in The Secret and the Law of Attraction and this is a book all about how a positive mindset, a calm mind and asking for what you want in life leading to said things happening.

I put it to test on Tuesday. My intention was to go buy school shoes for the boys, I asked for some money off as we walked through town (in my mind!) and there you go, 20% off the shoes was gifted at the till.

Next stop on the shopping trip was Poundland, I needed toothpaste and wanted to try some Zoflora (which BTW is amazeballs, smells so good and everything looks so clean!). The boys spied a football/pinball game and it was £5.  We got to the till and there was a very friendly shop assistant, I was friendly back. He told me the game should be £2. He went off to check, came back and told me he had got it wrong, the price was £5, but he then discounted it down to £2 for me with a wink. The lesson here is if you are nice to everyone and see the good in everyone then goodness will be repaid back to you.

The book is really good, here is the link to it on Amazon. I recommend you get it and explore the power of positive thinking. It has made a huge difference to my life since the beginning of 2017 when I started practising positivity, gratitude and surrounding myself with like-minded positive people. Also coinciding with when my business went boom and I started earning well.

Rooster Pocket Money App

The boys got £20 each for Easter from their grand-parents rather than eggs this year. Hurrah. Love this. I have been using the Rooster Pocket Money App to track their pocket money and added this extra Easter money into their pot. They get £5 per week for eating 5 portions of fruit and veg each day. We love this app and it tracks so well what money they have and how much they spend. So if they want to buy extra things for themselves the money is taken from the Rooster App. Whilst at the beach they wanted to buy footballs. All fine if we took the money from the balance in the Rooster App. It really helping them to understand the real value of things and the impact spending money has on their balance. All via a simple tracking app. I love it.

The Greatest Showman Film

On Wednesday evening, I went to see The Greatest Showman at the cinema with my Knebworth girlfriends. We went to Cineworld and used my Kidspass membership to get our tickets for £6.75 each rather than £12.50. Bargain. A Kidspass membership will cost you £1 for the first month to trial it, click here to set it up, then £2.99 each month afterwards. The pass saves you 40% at the cinema, kids eat free food at many restaurants, plus tons of cheap days out with the children are on offer. We got to the cinema as a family every couple of months so very much so get our moneys worth!

And OMG, the Greatest Showman is such a good film. I loved, loved, loved it. It made me cry a lot but in a happy way. I loved the songs, I love Hugh Jackman, I love Zak Efron. I highly recommend it and know its been out for ages and I am behind the times. Am going back to see it again next week with Dylan and Josh!

A day at the Beach

On Wednesday during the day we had no plans so we got up, I did a quick, free, body coach HIIT session, then we bundled into the car for an adventure. Two hours later we arrived at Frinton-on-Sea in the SUNSHINE. I love the beach. It grounds me, I feel at home. I grew up in Penzance and a 5-minute walk from the sea. My view from my bedroom was over Mounts Bay with St.Micheals Mount looking at me every day.

We spent lots of time walking the beach at Frinton, collecting shells and treasure. Climbing the breakers as the tide came in. We sat and had a picnic watching the sea getting closer and closer, Jack freaking out that the sea would reach us. The boys played beach Olympics and I raced against Dylan on an assault course, he beat me obvs. All for free:-)

We had a little walk up to the high street, the boys had ice cream and cake (cost of £18). Excessive amounts of sugar perhaps, but we were having a lovely day. I felt at peace with the world.

A New Aldi Opens in Welwyn Garden City (A sneaky no 6)

I normally shop at Aldi Stevenage. It’s a bit tired, the car park is bumpy making it hard to get trolley to car and it’s a small store. On Thursday a shiny new Aldi opening in Welwyn Garden City, a 15-minute drive rather than 10 minutes. I can cope with that. Dylan and I headed there on opening day to see if anything exciting was happening. Well that was a no! Some guy who won a kayaking Olympic medal opened it at 8am and they gave free fruit and veg to the first 3o customers!

Never mind! We just did our normal shop, that should last around 10 days. We did find some bargains. Single fitted bed sheets for £1.99…that is fab value. A bottle of my favourite organic prosecco (£7.99) went in the trolley and few cans of gin in a tin. They had lots of different things to Stevenage as Welwyn is a bit more of an affluent area, so I got some nice smoked salmon, coconut water and some nice cheese. The bill came to £104 which is about normal given the Prosecco and bed sheets were extra to normal.

I am linking up with this Cass, Emma and Becky in this week’s ‘Five Fabulously Frugal things I’ve done this week’ linky.

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