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.

Black Friday Madness and lots of Nappy goodness

So, I am not one to be tempted into black Friday…..cannot be bothered to go wait outside the shops with my elbows raised ready to attack anyone who gets in my way! But from the comfort of my computer I am pleased to say I have succumbed to the Black Friday madness a little.

I have been toying over getting some Cheeky wipes for a while now, but struggled to justify the cost….but with their 25% off Black Friday sale and the fact I sold some stuff so had a decent fund in my paypal, I treated myself and Bear to some lovely new wipes with their snazzy clean/dirty boxes and bags! I am so excited!

On another nappy note….we have fallen in love with Gnappies (I completely blame Ocado for that one, their latest offer was unreal!!) But we get way longer out of them, with no leaks at all. I have 5 medium block colours which I am managing to use plenty as I wash the pouches and covers in with the normal wash and the inserts with the nappy wash, but have plenty of inserts (need to wash at 40, my normal nappy wash is 60 so would rather be safe than sorry!) But love them so much I have purchased a christmas themed one for Bear…..only down side is i didnt realise I was buying from the USA…..fingers crossed it arrives in time!!

Also, I won a competition by Ecopipo and got one of their newest nappies. I am very impressed with the inserts and overall quality by them too. We have been discovering lots of new brands just lately and loving it.

Our stash is somewhat impressive now, fingers crossed I can get some new stash shots and On the bum pictures soon….Bear is getting so big now!!!

GREAT Britain Bambino Mio

It is no secret I love Bambino MioSolos…..so I was super excited for their new print release this morning!!

And here it is…..

It was love at first sight for me…..as the original london print is my favourite, this one has gone down well too! I have ordered it this morning, so eagerly awaiting it’s arrival later on this week 🙂 But, unfortunately, it hasn’t gone down well with everyone. Someone said that there was nothing British about it, it was focused too much on London and only fans of the BNP (British National Party) would like it, the same lady even went as far as to suggest those living in Scotland would hate it as it has nothing to do with them (apart from the union jack, stamps, taxi’s, buses, umbrellas, post boxes and buses……I’m sure Scotland do infact have some of these things too!!!) Others are outraged that it is too similar to the recently discontinued London print…..here is london for those unfamiliar with it

So, Ok some images do feature on both and are both on a white background (as are spring, summer, posie, ladybird, traffic, elephants, circus and forest……sorry, all of these are abbreviated Solo print names), others hoped for something a little more ‘girlie’ and others just don’t like it (I wasn’t a fan of Cheeky Monkey when it first came out, but now its one of our favourites, sometimes they are better ‘in the flesh’) but I still think it is a really nice design as a stand alone print, I love it. I cannot wait for it to arrive and for Bear to wear it…..I will post pictures when he does.

Good work Bambino Mio

(Please note: I do not work for Bambino Mio, I rave about their products so much as I use them for my child…..we have found they are the best for us and I would only ever recommend a product that I am willing to use for myself or my family…..but if Bambino Mio did want to give me a job I would love it, Jokes!!!)

Spreading the Bambino Mio love!

Over the last 7 months we have tried and tested loads of different brands of nappies, coupled with loads of different ways to ‘boost’ them. With varying levels of success…..

I have always thought that my ‘cheapies’ were great, for the cost I cannot and will not fault them, having been swayed by the more expensive nappies and coming away disappointed, I remained faithful to our originals.

However, my best advise now…..if ever you are swayed by the more expensive brands may I recommend Bambino Mio. We love them….the Mio Solo’s are our favourite, we are ever so slowly building up a stash of these (at around £13-£15 a nappy, they are not the most purse friendly to lower budget families) but there are plenty available pre-loved too (as they are sometimes stocked in supermarkets it may be worth a look, recently on a great offer at sainsburys, just gutted our local one doesn’t do cloth nappies). We have some of their super cute prints, but also love their block colours too! We also use their prefolds and wraps for our very successful bed time system (hardly ever a leak, and if there is it is the most tiniest of one!) There is also a rumour going around that some bambino mio products will be featured as the ‘specials’ in aldi at the end of the month, this makes me very excited…..hopefully it will help make cloth mainstream!

Of course, as always, every child is different, so children may suit different nappies better, but talking to a few other of my ‘cloth bum mum’ friends, Mio’s seem to be the popular choice now!

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!