New photos!

As promised, some new pictures of Bear!! He’s so big now!

Bear absolutely loves ice cream! We are so thankful he grew out of his dairy allergy, here he is enjoying a mini milk in the garden and a Mr Whippy style ice cream from his nanny’s new business (check her out on facebook, twitter or instagram – @justvwdesserts she serves ice cream and sundaes from her amazing VW campervan!) Bear definitely is nanny’s no.1 customer…..he insists on sampling all new ideas!

Bear is also quite partial to a babychino when we are out and about – we have to keep our eye on him though, given half the chance he will be sipping our coffees too!!! He is most definitely lively enough on his own, without the coffee!!

We love to get out and about, whether it is digging for worms in the garden, the park or taking advantage of our national trust membership (thanks nanny & grandad for our Christmas gift!) So far this year we have visited 6 different national trust sites (some a number of times as they are so close by!), with lots of plans to visit lots more soon. We got Bear a little ‘passport’ so he can keep  track of all our adventures. We have had a lovely warm weekend, this weekend, Bear and daddy even got chance to wear their shorts. Outside activities this weekend included painting fence panels, playing with lots of new garden toys Bear got for his birthday and lunch outside! Bear was very, very happy to be able to be back outside for long periods of time (when it was icy and cold he could only manage 20 minutes of play at a time!)

Allergies are back!!

so, all has been very quiet from us for quite a while now. Bear has been really well and hasn’t had any issues for months…..well over 12 to be more accurate. He turned 3 the other week and we seem to be having some unexplained allergic reaction in the form of hives and itching. We started a food diary, but there was no obvious food to coincide with the reactions. We also suspected rubber latex, following his birthday, we had a fair few balloons in the house, which he thoroughly enjoyed playing with in every way……some sneaky culling of the balloons after bed time until they all vanished seemed to see a huge reduction in the frequency of the reaction, although it has not solved the problem completely. He is kept comfortable with piriton when required and a calpol plug in vapouriser seems to make him more comfortable at night time when his reaction causes stuffy noses and itchy throats. It has been a while since we have had to deal with allergy related problems, but it all feels so familiar and there’s no panic this time….thinking we are now seasoned professionals now. Good job really,as we are soon to add another little man to our household…..and the same allergies are never far from mind after our experiences with bear.

 

So, arriving in June 2017 will be our little cub. Pregnancy has resurrected several allergies for myself. Lots of itchy skin related problems have seen me give up on all my usual shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, moisturisers and make up. I was feeling pretty sorry for myself, until I discovered something wonderful……child’s farm! Now, I know I probably have mentioned them many a time when talking about bear as I have been a fan for quite some time, but I never thought to use it for myself! I now smell and feel amazing after using all their shower products as well as their moisturiser, even caught my hubby filling up his bath the other day with child farm smelling bubbles, so even he is loving their stuff.

 

this is just a quick update from me today,but hoping to update more regularly with all things bear and cub! Especially as I will soon get to bring our cloth nappies back out of storage since bear potty trained last summer!!!! Excited!

Making changes…

There have been many changes for us…..

Bear has changed, he no longer has allergies…..he is now well over 2, so no longer my little baby, but instead my little toddler instead.

My life is changing too, as will soon have no job. As our income will drastically reduce, we have started to make some big changes to the way we live.

With this in mind, I have decided to change the nature of the blog from allergies (a journey that I can no longer share with you all) to frugal living…..something that I am learning to do and wish to document my new adventure.

So, a few of my favourite frugal tips….

1. don’t forget cashback sites. I prefer Quidco personally, but there are several out there. you can earn cashback on lots of online purchases, from generating insurance quotes, when you take out new online insurance policies, doing surveys and lots of other ways. Heres the link if you wanted to have a look, if you sign up through the link we both get a pound or so as a reward. http://www.quidco.com/user/4763630/2199207/
2. Receipt apps: there’s several that I use, firstly there is clicksnap…..it is linked to Quidco, it only rewards you with 1p every time you submit a receipt and will only accept certain supermarkets (although, if you buy certain products you get bonus money!) it soon builds up with all the other cashback you get. Secondly, is receipt hog….this one is ok, takes a while to get enough coins to cashout but its better than nothing, using the referral code frul6483 will give both of us free spins on their bonus machine. Thirdly, saving the best to last, is shopprize. Sadly is an android app only but is by far the best at paying out…..I get £5 amazon voucher every 3 weeks or so. Referral code is a0n4g (0 is a number is this not a letter!) you guys wont get anything if you use it, but if you do then add your referral codes to the comments as I can only use it 5 times so yours can be used by others!! Im saving all my amazon vouchers to use to buy bear some amazing Christmas presents.
3. My favourite ‘hobby’ if you will is a well timed trip to the supermarket. Hitting it just right means you get some great deals on reduced items…..coupled with a large freezer, you will be smiling for weeks. A few weeks ago I went to my local co-op at just gone 4 on a Saturday afternoon, managed to pick up 2 ‘salt&pepper pork joints’ for 99p each, will make 2 lovely dinners with enough meat for lunches the next day. Also got 3 packs of 4 breaded fish pieces, for £1.15 each, these have been separated into 4 portions for the 3 of us for dinner. Also got 2 different packs of sausages (one Richmond 8 pack in a ready to roast tin and one 6 pack of bbq pulled pork sausages, both for 69p each!) Thats 8 meals for less than £7 so I am very happy!!! Also remember that lots of reduced stuff can be frozen, not just meat….cakes, bread, etc. We have a little drawer freezer and a chest freezer which are getting nicely full of reduced sticker items now.
4. Another little tip is to freeze any veg that you are not likely to be able to use before they start to go off……I peel/chop/etc them and place in freezer bags so can quickly grab them to add to a stew mix or to boil up for a quick meal in the week. time saver and a money saver.
5. One trick I tried to see if my family noticed was to bulk out a chilli. I used one packet of mince and cooked it with a couple of onions, kidney beans, 2 peppers, 2 tins of tomatoes and lots of seasonings. Cooked enough for a decent portion for dinner that night, with some added rice, and the same meal again a week or so later from the freezer…..tinned tomatoes, kidney beans and onions are all really cheap but bulk out a basic meal to get 2 for the price of one.

 

So, here’s my little introduction to frugal living, will let you know how I get on over the next few weeks….future posts to include photos of my bargain buys too!!

 

Would love to hear some feedback from you guys about my new topic. thank you.

Let’s get cooking and be a little frugal!

Now bear doesn’t follow a dairy free diet shopping has become simple. We no longer have to read every label and we can try new things. We always encourage Bear to at least try things, he obviously has the things he likes and things he doesn’t like, but nothing makes us prouder when he just tries things because he wants to. the other day he helped himself to his daddy’s hummus, dipping some of his daddy’s cucumber (he didn’t like that much) and a raw carrot (he enjoyed chewing) although he has had these things before, he didn’t like them on a number of previous tries, but we were so pleased he gave them another go…..and all by himself. He also ate a slice of ham for the first time ever (he has very recently just cut 3 back teeth…..making it 11 teeth in total!! We think this helped him to chew, and enjoy, the ham)

We also like to encourage Bear to help with the cooking, and some fun baking too. We are trying to encourage a healthy relationship with food for him. We all love good, healthy, home cooked meals….cooked from scratch. We have discovered muscle foods as a source for amazing quality meat for a cheap price (they often do really awesome deals on big bundles, so we are definitely needing our big freezer!) I have included a link to muscle foods in case anyone is interested, if you use my referral code you will also get a free item (and i will receive some credit too). Our meat portion of our meals work out at around £2 a meal (with the latest order made, should come out somewhere near £1.50 a meal…..and that is for the 3 of us!) You can also get great groupon deals for muscle food bundles, that is where we sourced our last order…..and don’t forget you can get cashback on it if using quidco (I will also include a quidco referral code for anyone who wants it, once you start earning, we both get £5 cashback) Using quidco I have received almost £200 cashback in the last 15 months on things that I would have bought anyway…..we are really trying to live a little more frugally to save money for the finer things in life (life trips out and nice holidays!) I am thinking I may start to turn this blog into a frugal living and general life type of blog to share my experiences now we don’t have allergies to concern ourselves with. Will see how it goes and see what our followers reaction to it may be.

Muscle food link, and referral code: Receive a free gift (and i get a little bit of account credit!)

http://www.musclefood.com/LS201491

LS201491

 

Quidco referral code: we both get £5 cashback once you start earning!

http://www.quidco.com/user/4763630/2147432/

Unknowingly, doing my bit to save the planet!

It has dawned on me, by making certain choices for other reasons, I can feel proud that I am doing my bit to help ‘save the planet’.

Lets start by telling you a few things that me and hubby have always done….we aren’t ones to have the heating on high, we would rather an extra jumper or a blanket on the sofa of an evening, our house is ‘cold’ to others, so much so, they bring coats to put on whilst inside! We installed a wood burner as our main heating source in our house, cosmetically, it looks amazing…and after 18 months we are yet to buy any wood, just burn unwanted fence posts, furniture, pallet boards, etc. Hubby loves to grow his own, so our garden has its own veg patch, our patio is host to the herb pots and our borders are home to the fruit bushes. We enjoy composting as much as we can and recycle anything possible. We waste as little as possible, after a roast dinner, the left over bones are used to make a stock even.

So, some of our new life choices…

As you may be aware, Bear is cloth bummed, from 7 months old until he is potty trained we will not be contributing disposables to landfill (and as I have been reading just recently, the amount of energy used to make the nappies is also quite high) our reasons for cloth bumming was due to Bears allergies, our second reason would be financial, 3rdly, I quite enjoy it…..planet earth is far from my priorities! We have a large number of nappies now and have spent less than £200, we will be able to reuse all the nappies for future children, saving ourselves lots of money and saving the planet a couple of extra tonnes of landfill waste (disposable nappies are rumoured to take 200 years to decompose!!!)

We wash the nappies on the ‘eco’ setting, meaning the machine is not using too much energy to wash the nappies, we wash the nappies twice a week. And we no longer tumble dry them either (mainly because the ‘low’ setting seems to have broken) but since having to hang the pockets, inserts, liners and wipes up to dry I figured I should be air drying everything…..the tumbler has been on possibly twice since I had this genius idea!

Since getting used to dealing with the nappies I have discovered a love for cloth sanitary products (CSP). Again, disposable ones are manufactured in a energy consuming way and take a long time to decompose. These items get washed with the nappies (so no additional loads to do). It isn’t ‘gross’ as many people think…and the bathroom bin at ‘that time of the month’ doesn’t get full or smell!

I have recently discovered a love for Milton cold water sterilisation…after 12 months of microwave sterilising. So much so I plan to cold water sterilise everything for future babies (that means not having to use the microwave up to 3 or 4 times a day!) It is so much more convenient than microwaving, just was the bottles and pop in the sterilising bucket, takes a minimum of 15 minutes (bit rubbish if you are in a rush!) but then they are ready….no burning your hand trying to grab them out the hot microwave too soon….and you can do more than the 4 at a time you are limited to in a microwave system.

I now work within walking distance of my home. I can also do my grocery shopping within walking distance too. This means that the car is used rarely….so much so that we put a 6000 mile limit on the insurance, a mileage we are expecting to come well under in a 12 month period!

Obviously, my choices are not driven by my love of planet earth….I do what I do for Bear mainly (and hoping to save a few pennies through not having to buy disposable products, buy fuel and hoping the electric bill may reduce too!) but simple life choices can easily have an impact on the environment….if more people did one or two of these things then the planet would be looking a lot healthier too!