Our Easter holidays started a week ago, a week behind most of the country it appears. In order to help out and give ideas to the nation I wrote this article for the Mirror, TEN free things to do with the children. I absolutely did some of these last week.
We did some free stuff, like going to the gym as part of my mystery shopping with free membership. We baked cookies and sausage rolls. And we went out for walks in nature doing the nature treasure hunt I wrote about in my article.
Alas we also went to cinema, went bowling and had a couple lunches out, not packed lunches;-). I spent an extra £200 last week on these Easter holiday expenses. Holidays are certainly a time when costs shoot up. My boys love to go bowling, but bowling for three of us cost £45. I treated us to a Wagamama’s afterwards and spent £55 on bao buns and noodles. Oh how I love Wagamama’s though!
We also had a day in London to watch Brentford versus West Ham. These were gifted tickets from wonderful Pensionbee but I still spent £19 on the train (grabbing a third discount using my friends and family railcard) and spent £28 on brunch at Giraffe on route and £10 in Greggs on the way home!
Total Spend £650
We managed to spend a grand total of £160 on eating out or takeaways. Ouch. £115 was spent on things for children, including a big H&M haul of clothes for DJ, an ever growing teenager. Incidentally both children need new trainers and I’m saving up my Top Cashback for these, so far I have £65 saved up from online purchases plus a few refer a friend credits. If you transfer Top Cashback money earned into shopping voucher you get a bonus, this is worth an extra 5% on top of the cash back already earned. PLUS when I buy from Nike I’ll buy via Top CashBack and save another 4% on my next purchase. I love a double discount. Join Top Cashback here.
I also bought some theatre tickets for May. I haven’t been to the theatre since before lockdown! Exciting. The only thing about theatre tickets is that they are really not cheap. £66 spent there. There were a few bills, some fuel costs and some business expenses.
This is actually not too bad a spending week! My boys now go to their dads for a week so my spending will be limited to just me, and currently I don’t have much planned for this week, especially as I go on holiday next week.
Book Recommendation
Call me old fashioned but I do love an actual book, rather than kindle. I read The Mermaid of The Black Conch on holiday in February and spotted The Tryst by the same author Monique Roffey recently. Its a brilliant book if you want a good read packed full of sex and lust. Buy it here via my Amazon affiliate link.
That’s it for this week. Do look out for all my articles in the The Mirror, there are plenty to help with current tough times, I am one of their cost of living experts after all.
