Playpennies

Today's feature comes to you from the pen of Harriet, blogger at Is There A Plan B, who we recently featured on PlayPennies Loves.

I’m new to Playpennies, and you may think my title misses the point rather.  But I’m very good at not spending money.  It’s one of my talents. I always wanted to be the sort of mother who would randomly buy her children beautiful things, but I don’t, because I can’t ever justify it.  So I end up in Primark (or, post move, M&Co).

Instead, I’m writing about the opposite.  What are the things that I bought cheaply and now wish I had spent money on? The false economies. The parenting equivalents of value washing up liquid.  Obviously we are all constrained by our personal budgets, but, whatever yours may be, these five things you can justify...

Pushchair

A really good pushchair.  I’m not recommending a brand, because pushchairs are more personal than haircuts. You can admire someone else’s but that doesn’t mean it will work for you.  You need to sit down and think about what your pushchair needs to do, and then you need to spend as much money as it takes to get it.

If you get one that doesn’t do something you want it to, whether that be go off-road, or take a car seat, or let your baby lie totally flat, or go through the front door, it will irritate you beyond words, and you’ll probably end up buying the one you should have got in the first place anyway.

Waterproof

A proper (and I mean proper) waterproof.  It won’t be pretty, it won’t be glamorous, but boy will you thank me when the baby’s screaming,  it’s pouring with rain, you have to get out of the house, and you watch someone else in the same position try and manhandle a brolly and a pram. It doesn’t work. Get a cagoule.

Nappy bag

A really lovely nappy bag.  I went “Pah! That’s silly and frivolous.  I don’t need a nappy bag I like, it just has to be functional”.  Three years of using it EVERY DAY, and I’m really, really wishing I’d bought this kind of thing.

When you’ve just had a baby and you’re wearing a cagoule, you won’t feel glamorous and lovely, but a glamorous and lovely nappy bag will help.  Get someone to buy it for you as a present.

Bouncer

A stupidly expensive bouncy chair.  Ideally this babysitter balance bouncer from Johnlewis.  Yes, I know. It’s £100 for a bouncy chair.  Bear with me.  We bought this spot bouncer.  It’s £14.  Both our first born and our twins hated it and I thought they just didn’t like bouncing.

Then we borrowed the other and both the twins loved it. I don’t know what Baby Bjorn have done, but whatever it is it works and it was a godsend. I had somewhere I could put one of them down, and know they would be happy for twenty minutes.  That’s worth it.

Microwave

A microwave. You can wean a baby (and/or make up formula milk) without a microwave (I should know, I’ve done it three times) but life’s apparently a lot easier if you’ve got one.

Those are my five essentials, but I’d also not feel ashamed of buying breast-feeding tops and underwired nursing bras to preserve your dignity, give your (ahem) spirits a lift, and make you feel vaguely human...

So that’s it. You have permission to spend money. What are you waiting for?

[Photo credits: Mzelle Biscotte]

Clothes.  Baby equipment. Toys. Thingamajigs. These are all necessities for parents and yet they can really add up to the GDP of a small African country when you first start stocking up for baby. Or sorting out your kids seasonal wardrobes. Or just doing your monthly shop.

They grow so fast. One minute that dress fits perfectly and the next it looks like a t-shirt. I know that I’ve made more than one emergency run to the nearest Tescos to get an outfit in time for some event because her party dresses are all too small. I also know that I've spent a lot of time worrying about how I'm to afford some or other unexpected necessity.

If you’re not Suri Cruise and rolling in designer gear and parental money, then there are some fabulous money saving options out there. I’ve scoured the internet and the brains of other clever parents to find some of the best ideas for getting everything you need for your kids without breaking the bank.

Free Stuff!

Not only can you get free goodies from the many freebies we discover on PlayPennies every week, but you can also get free cots, bottle warmers, clothes and so forth from sites like Freecycle. To get in on the action you only need to register with the Freecycle in your area and then monitor the posts for the items you want.

You can even get rid of old tat that you have lying around your home. We managed to find someone who wanted to take our broken office chair off us! There is, literally, something for everyone on Freecyle.

If this isn’t quite your cup of tea, a newbie called Freegle has sidled onto the scene. It works in pretty much the same way as Freecycle but it may give you more area coverage and more people. In both systems, if you want something desperately you can post a wanted message and someone will hopefully get in touch.

Hot Tip: Take the time to find out more about the item you want to collect. You don’t want to get all excited about a free cotbed only to get there and discover you’ve landed a revolting, mouldy splintered wreck. Most people are more than happy to give you images and details.

Nearly New!

Now this is a fantastic resource that I’ve really benefitted from. After spending a mere £20 I’ve walked away with enough clothes to keep my daughter in outfits for a year. Thanks to generous relatives and fast growing babies, many of the clothes you'll find at these nearly new sales are brand new, or barely used.

The National Childbirth Trust runs hundreds of nearly-new sales every year and you can find your nearest one here. These are not only a great place to find used clothes and baby goods, but also new friends and neighbours.

Sadly the NCT doesn’t have a widespread range and so there may not be a sale anywhere near where you live. This is what happened to Rachel D’Cruze and so she decided to start her very own version called Sell it Mama that not only gives you the opportunity to buy and sell clothes, but donates proceeds from the events to charity. You can open your own stall for £25 (its £45 for commercial businesses) and get rid of all that junk in the attic. It’s a steal! (see what I did there?)

Hot Tip: If you don't have enough clothes to start your own stall or afford the cost, why not team up with a bunch of mums in your area. You can either split the proceeds down the middle or donate everything you make to the charity of your choice.

Borrow It!

If you aren’t able to buy tons of toys, or just don’t want them lying around every corner in your house, then a toy library may be exactly what you need. The National Association of Toy & Leisure Libraries offers a wide range of toys on loan for a nominal fee (sometimes for free) and play sessions for children and parents.

The toys are all good quality and many of them are suited to children with special needs too. You can borrow toys from the library to take home, or you can spend some time on their premises enjoying the toys, meeting new parents and giving your child time to play with others.

While we’re on the subject of libraries...I know this may seem stunningly obvious but have you been to your local library lately? Many of them have undergone impressive transformations over the past few years and offer so much more than just books and a quiet spot to read.

You can teach your children basic computer skills on provided equipment, join in fun sessions for children once a week, take out all the latest children’s books for free (some libraries don’t even charge you for late returns on children’s books) and parents can spend happy hours mooching through the different sections while their kids happily entertain themselves.

Hot Tip: The library has to be the best place to go on a dark and dreary day. Nab a ton of books and abscond to the nearest coffee shop together for a cuddle and a read or just stay and play until you feel like going home. Time your visit to coincide with your local library's children's hour.

Children, despite their smaller size, generate a load more washing than the adults in my house. I’m guessing that it’s probably the same in your house too. So I’ve done a little investigating, to find as many money saving tips for the laundry as possible.

It’s a cold wash

I’d feel like I’ve been lied to all these years, except to be honest no-one has. At least not explicitly. Somewhere along the way I fell for the advertising and marketing. I came to believe that you couldn’t get a clean wash unless you used hot water, or special low temperature detergent. It came as a revelation to find the number one tip on every website that I looked at was: wash at cold temperatures, and you don’t need to use special cold water detergents.

I felt like a bit of an idiot when I excitedly shared this with my mum only to find out that she’s used a cold wash all her life. Except, of course, when sterilizing (as you’d want to with sheets and towels). According to the Energy Trust if you just turn down to 30C you’ll save up to 40% of your electricity usage. The site says that “today's washing powders work just as effectively at lower temperatures, so there's no reason to use a hot wash unless there are particularly stubborn stains on your laundry.”

One Play Pennies reader, Jennifer, says she’s done her laundry for years using cold water, and ordinary detergents, and never noticed a difference. So there you go!

Detergent savings

Another Play Pennies regular, Sho, cuts her washing powder with household soda. This is also called soda crystals, or bicarbonate of soda. It is inexpensive – Tesco sell a 1kg packet of Dri Pak Soda Crystals for 70p.

Soda is quite an effective stain remover, and particularly good for grease based stains. “You can knock a third off the recommended amount of detergent and still get your clothes just as clean. Replace some of that with the soda,” Sho suggests.

Soda also softens water, which is a big bonus for me and anyone else living in the Thames Valley region where water is so hard it is almost solid. Even the chap who installed our washing machine recommended it. He told us to forget spending money on softeners like Calgon and just stick soda in the wash. It’s what he always did, and said it worked just as well.

I love this page at the Green Store. It lists 30 different uses for bicarbonate of soda around the house. Brilliant stuff.

If you’re really keen, try making your own detergent. I found this recipe on a US site called the Simple Dollar. Not quite sure I’d want to have a go myself, but it looks pretty eco friendly.

One thing I can’t help noticing as I peruse the detergent aisle in the supermarket is that biological detergents are much cheaper than non-bio versions. Often they’re a third of the cost. So what is the difference between the two? Should we be worried about using a bio?

According to environmental website Big Green Smile “Biological detergent contains enzymes which aid the removal of stains. They do this by reacting with the water through hydrolysis. These enzymes will often work at lower temperatures than non-biological detergent, which does not contain enzymes.”

On the down side, the site says that biological detergents can irritate the skin of some people, so you may want to try just a little before running all your clothes through a bio wash. My other half was convinced that he was allergic to bio detergents, and that it bought his skin out in a rash. Except he only told me this a few months ago, when he finally read the box of washing powder we used. And I’ve been using bio’s since we got married 18 years ago with no complaints from him!

DIY fabric softeners

If watching Kim and Aggie on How Clean is Your House has taught me one thing it is that the only cleaning product you really need is white vinegar. And a little lemon juice. Although now I’m adding soda to that list!

Those Americans sure do love making their own stuff. I found this tip on a website called Stressless Country - I like the sound of that! Here’s its recipe for making your own fabric softener. “Plain white vinegar is a good substitute for fabric softener. Environmentally safe and nonalergenic, just add ½ to ¾ cup as you would a liquid softener.” Definitely sounds stress free to me. My only concern is – will it make your clothes smell like chips?

Finally, a few more tips

Never spend another penny on dry cleaning. Well, OK, I’m exaggerating. But KT Campbell’s excellent Hand Washing 101 site  has saved me a fortune over the years. And I’ve found her tips worked too. Although do read the disclaimers carefully!

Eco Salon has some more tips to offer on whether or not to dry clean (even if the washing label says ‘dry clean only’).

Back to the Stressless Country again. I love the sound of this and I'm going to try it out on some of my older clothes to see if it’ll put the colour ‘zing’ back into them. Definitely cheaper than buying new clothes. “When washing dark clothes for the first time use cold water and put 1 tablespoon of salt in the water. The salt helps set the colour. To brighten dark clothes after they have been washed several times, repeat the procedure.”

The last word

Do you have any laundry money saving tips to share? Let us know! We’re also after all your homemade efforts. Have you found a nifty little trick to make something yourself and save a few bob? Let us know – we’ll be running a feature on this in the next few weeks.

Teaching your child how to use the computer and, as they get older, how to use different programs and internet sites and tools, can be something of a minefield. There is enough debate about what TV does to their brains, much less sitting in front of a computer.

However, there has been plenty of research that’s shown how introducing your child to basic computer skills from a young age can give them a significant advantage later in life. From basic mouse handling skills to creating their own websites and games, these tools can support the National Curriculum, teach them about the world around them and entertain them at the same time.

Obviously, the amount of time you allow them to spend in front of the computer must be managed and moderated. For preschoolers most computer time will be spent with you. You can show them how to use the mouse, play interactive activities with them and let them figure out the keyboard. The older children can explore and play on their own steam.

If you keep the time down to fifteen minute bursts every other evening, or even once a week, at first and then build up to an allowance of 30 minutes a day, then they will gain the skills without necessarily suffering any of the side effects. It’s a good idea to swap it out with TV time too so they don’t spend even more time in front of a screen, and to only allow them to use it in bad weather or in the evenings.

Here, in no particular order, are a bunch of sites that will help you and your kids do wonderful things with computers and you won’t have to pay a cent.

Cbeebies

We all know this one! The biggest advantage of this site, other than being free of course, is that it has clearly outlined goals with each activity. By clicking on the Grown-ups information link at the bottom of each activity you can see what benefits it has for your kids.

Kids and Computers

This site has a ton of excellent articles, information and resources that you can use to become more au fait with issues surrounding computing and kids. The articles are well written, concise and offer up plenty of ideas for parents and kids.

Kidzworld

Free games, activities, school help, book reviews and more are available on this site. Kids can start their own blogs and journals which they can choose to keep private or share with friends. You have an entire resource section for parents and teachers plus a load of kid-related activities.

Togetherville

It’s Facebook for Mini Me! This site lets your kids enjoy the wonders of social networking in a safe and parent controlled environment. You get to decide who they connect with and you can ensure that their friends are wholesome by checking them out online. They can play games, talk to friends and have fun without fear. This is a really new site so we’ll see how well it gets on.

Haring Kids

I love this site. The artwork is gorgeous and the activities excellent. The creative work and lessons and stories are ideal for little ones getting used to the computer and there is even a section dedicated to lesson plans for teachers and parents.

Smories

I am more than a little bit in love with this site. Another new addition to the online world, this is a free website for children where they can watch short films of new and unpublished stories read by other children. Your kids can film themselves reading a story and submit it to win a prize of £1000 if they are lucky enough to be chosen, or they can watch any one of hundreds of other children read them stories. A complete stunner.

Storyplace

If you’re looking for free reading materials then this is where you want to go. There are thousands of stories in English and Spanish in this children’s digital library. Designed by librarians and specialists, this site has activities, stories, reading lists and things to do at home. All for free.

Family Learning

Designed to be used in conjunction with the National Curriculum, this site offers parents resources to help their children learn. You’ll find links to other sites and information, games and activities, features on how to live well and plenty more. It’s a fantastic place for parents of little ones at school to stop and get great ideas.

Crickweb

Crickweb has 30 free games for kids aged four to 11, tons of links to free interactive, image and software resources on the web and information on the various educational stages. Each section – Early Years, Key Stage 1, Key Stage 2 – has activities and resources to help you get the most from your child.

How many mummy friends do you have? One? Five? None? Mummy friends are, for those whose children haven’t yet started at nursery or reception, the mates you’re going to make (or not) at the school gate as you drop off and pick up your children.

Through the friends that I have made since my son started at school I’ve saved time, money and most importantly of all, my sanity. I wouldn’t even begin to figure out how to put a monetary value on this. From the mother who picks up my child for me when the bus is running late, to the mum who lets me know that the local swimming pool is doing a big freebie event and if I call this number RIGHT NOW I’ll be sure to get a ticket.  So just how do you get plugged into this supportive network?

According to a survey by the Children’s Mutual, a child’s saving trust specialist, mums make an average of eight new friends when they have children.

It gets more interesting. Apparently, three in four mothers rate these friendships as being more supportive than any others. And, one mum in three says that the strongest friendships are the five forged with other primary school parents.

So, if you didn’t already feel enough pressure and guilt as a mum, you’re also got to worry about your social standing in the playground.

Or do you?

Braving the crowd

Those first few weeks of reception were just awful. Not for my son, who went off happily every day. But for me. It was a horrible, lonely time to be honest. My son had attended a small school for nursery. There was just a single class intake. It had a lot of parent involvement, and a large PTA that ran a lot of events. Everyone was friendly. For reception though, he started at the school down the road. It was a much bigger school with a three class intake.

No-one seemed at all friendly, and no-one wanted to talk to me. I work from home, and hadn’t realised how much I’d come to rely on those few minutes of social interaction a day. Without it, I felt like I was going stir crazy.

It seemed to take forever. The breakthrough came in the local park. In the late autumn sun, Daniel started playing with another boy. As it became clear that this was a boy he went to school with, I realised that the mum was one of the ‘unfriendly’ mothers. I sucked it up, and just went for it. Just started talking to her.

To my surprise, she turned out to be really quite chatty. And that’s when I began to realise that it was fear not unfriendliness. We were all standing out there in the playground, afraid of each other. Afraid of being snubbed. She was just as worried about me finding her ‘inferior’ as I was.

Satorial presentation

I was also probably being more than a bit off putting myself. The North Face bulky hiking jacket I frequently wore probably made me look like a rather frightening person to most folks in that part of  London. I did find that I got a quicker, friendlier smile from other parents when I switched to my smart, red, woollen winter coat left over from my days of working in an office.

The blog Beyond Jane offers five top fashion tips for mums at the school gate. It is mind boggling stuff though. Take this extract “Plain black shoes are always a winner, and wearing a dash of make-up and perfume really shows you’ve made an effort. “ Yikes. That’s more than I can manage for ‘date night’ with the other half.

Etiquette

Debretts, the ‘modern authority on all matters etiquette, taste and achievement’ has a section devoted to School Gate Etiquette. No seriously, it does! This does not contain, as I’d hoped, the key to all the unspoken playground parental rules that seem to trap me into almost continuous faux pas. But actually has a bit of commonsense to it. I like the bits about never boasting about your child’s achievements and not turning up dressed to the nines in a huge SUV (very bad taste).

Be yourself

It probably helps to be a little bit circumspect during the first week, a sort of slightly toned down and tidier version of yourself. But really and truthfully being yourself is the way to go. Other ‘types’ of parents might make instant friends straight away, but it is, as I found eventually, worth the wait. By being yourself, the friends that you will make are going to be most like you. And since you’re going to be together for the next seven years, that’s really the best way to start!

Going on holiday is essential. We all need a break and a chance to unwind but sometimes the reality is too expensive and we’re stuck with hovering around the house. I’ve certainlyenjoyed (ahem) this problem more than once so I decided to trawl the web and interview other parents to find some great ways to have a break without going bankrupt.

Rent

If you are planning on a break in any of the major cities around the world then the cost of a hotel is enough to make you cry.  Instead of forking out the GDP of a small country for three days of hotel living, look into renting an apartment or studio.

There are plenty of websites that list homes and apartments across the globe that are up for rent, the prices varying according to the time of year and the size of the place itself. You can probably extend your stay for far longer than you’d have thought and the advantages of more space, healthy food (self catering costs less than eating out three times a day) and controlling your laundry are self evident.

Swap

This may not be everybody’s cup of tea but a lot of people are getting in on the Home Swapping action. All you do is let them use your house while you use theirs and it will cost you nothing more than the upkeep you would have spent on your home anyway. Of course, there are some obvious issues that can occur like getting an awful house, or awful tenants in your own house, but there are many people who swear by the experience.

Become an Agritourist

Yes, I was bewildered by this one too. The gist of it is that you stay at a farm in a B&B style layout and help out with some of the activities. It’s particularly popular in Italy but there are a ton of options in Europe, Australia and the USA. Kids love getting into the swing of things, parents can recapture their inner child and you’ll walk away feeling relaxed, fit and healthy.

Home Stay

This is one that enchanted me completely and was recommended to me by a friend.

“We had been too broke to go on holiday for far too long when I heard about how you can pay a small fee to live with a family in Bali,” said Sonya, mum to Alfie and Lotte, “At first I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay with complete strangers for two weeks but when I realised how cheaply it could be done, I decided it was better than no holiday at all.”

Now Sonya is a convert and has actually gone back to stay with the same family again. She said it was so much better than staying in a hotel as her family got to experience life from the point of view of the locals. 

“We did and saw things that we would never have seen or done if we’d gone the usual route,” she said, “And my daughter ended up becoming firm friends with their son and they now write to each other all the time.”

Volunteer

Not only do I love the name of this organisation WWOOF but I love the idea too. In exchange for your hard volunteer work, you get fed and housed and taught all about sustainable living. You have to pay an initial registration fee of around £30 but you can participate at any one of 400 places in the UK and others in Europe too.

If you like the idea of expanding your child’s horizons and learning something new yourself, then organic farming for free may be your best holiday yet.

Camp

Yes, yes, I know, this isn’t a hugely inspirational thought and getting all the equipment can be an expensive operation. But, if you want to avoid the damp tent then why not look into cabins or caravans that are slightly more expensive but still a lot cheaper than the usual places.

While they may not be tres chic, you will find that most of these holiday parks (both in the UK and abroad) have plenty of dedicated activities for kids, are usually located near the hotspots for fun, views and sightseeing, and are easy to do. These are perfect for those Bank Holiday escapes, especially if you book well enough in advance.

The Risky Venture

If you don’t care where you go, what time of the year you go, or what kind of accommodation you’ll end up with, then take a chance on the holiday package deals that many sites like Expedia et al offer you. We recently booked a seven day excursion to Crete for £500. In total. That was the total cost for taxes, transfers, flights, accommodation and baggage.

The accommodation was shared by Cedric the cockroach and his mate, Cyril, but we honestly didn’t care. It was all about the adventure for us and we weren’t there to hang about in our apartment. We experienced the beaches, the archaeology, the history and the fantastic food and we really didn’t spend much more once we got there.

Where do you stand on party bags? A pleasant way to end a party, or a mad symbol of our out of control materialistic times? Call me crazy, and I know many of my friends will, but I love them. As a parent, I appreciate their very existence when it comes time to extricate my little over stimulated and over tired child from a party. I’m not afraid to resort to bribery – if you come now you’ll get your gift.  And when it comes to throwing parties for the kids, I love making up the little bags and handing out goodies at the end of the party. What’s nicer than having free reign to give sweeties and toys to children? It is why Halloween is my favourite holiday.

Here’s the best of the party bag tips we could find, from the internet, our own experience, and from other PlayPennies parents.

One thing to keep in mind is that really, there is no obligation to have party bags. I’ve been to a number of parties where the children have walked out more than happy with cake in one hand and a balloon in the other. Party bags are really only something to think about for younger children. For older children, parties often have an activity that either results in something to take home or is more than enough on its own. I have never seen a child walk out of bowling, ice skating or laser tag disappointed they didn’t get a party bag!

It’s a bag!

First off, the bags themselves. This could be the gift all on its own. My son got a toy tin bucket at a party when he was three, and still uses it in our sandpit and at the beach. Last year Tanya collected paper bags from her workmates. “The sandwich shop next to the office gives out food in white, plain paper bags. I just got people to give me any that were clean and uncrumpled. My daughters and I decorated some for gift bags, and used the plain ones to hand out the party food in.”

Kids are going to rip apart or throw away whatever it is you use for the bag. It won’t matter if it has Ben 10, Scooby Doo, or Princess Barbie on it. We went to one party for four year olds where the party bags were A4 sized manila envelopes that the birthday girl and boy (twins) had decorated with paint.  A very nice touch, but not something I'll ever be able to get my son to do. This year I bought a couple of packets of cellophane bags that were on special offer in a party shop: a total of 40 bags for £3. You can see the bags here.

Dee uses plain bags, such as blank cellophane bags or paper bags, and gets the party guests to do the decorating. “I let the kids pick out and colour in a picture off the internet (a small one) and cut out and glue it to the front of the bags”.

How about this for a cool idea? If you have the time that is. Over at Parentdish.com, Debbie made ‘plastic buckets’ to use as gift bags out of milk bottles splashed with acrylic paint.

Fillers

Just about every supermarket and pound shop sells multi packs of party fillers. Little plastic toys that are less than robust but will last in landfills for the next few hundred years. What to do? I like to pick one toy for the bags. If I’m doing a large or whole class party, I don’t worry about making it the same toy for everyone. Keeping an eye out throughout the year for special offers is always a good idea.

Nicki says she likes to get “a sticker book with 20 pages of stickers for £2, then put a sheet in each bag. You can also buy multi packs of pencils in pound shops, with kids characters on them - works out cheaper. Buy a pack of temporary tatoo's and cut out individual one's to put in the bag - kids think this is great. If you want to make the bag look fuller go for an individual pack of crisps or popcorn to bulk it up.”

If you’re worried about adding to landfill, there are eco-friendly options out there. These aren’t going to be the cheapest but neither will they necessarily be prohibitively expensive. For example, you could go for bio-degradable balloons. A pack of 10 costs £1.99 from eco-friendly party supplier Little Cherry.

Make your own

Craft parties were popular with lots of the parents that we talked to. At her daughter’s fifth birthday party, Nicki got all the girls to make their own beaded bracelets – these went in the party bags. Debbie got the party goers to print their own t-shirts. Sheona’s daughter recieved a CD as the ‘party gift’. “She came home with a CD that the mum had made while they were all out running around the garden - it had photos she'd taken of the party, a picture of each child with the birthday child, a couple of videos they'd made of them all singing. Plus the official version of the song (but I'm not sure of the legality of that.).”

To finish with though, how about this superb idea? I love it so much I’m going to have a go myself for my son’s next birthday party. Kelly at Craftin Up has figured out a way to make her own crayons. She uses old broken crayons and a silicon mould – heart shaped ones in this instance. This ticks all the right boxes –  it is eco friendly, inexpensive, and it's unique. Tell us your fab ideas!

I have to admit it. My name is Lynley and I am a sweet-aholic. I blame my parents. Clearly, judging by the amount of sweets they consume, it is hereditary. I was born with a sweet tooth. And it looks like I’ve passed this on to my son as well.

So now that I’m a parent, I recognise that there’s no point in denying a child all sweets. Where’s the fun in life if you do that? By the same token though, although I worry less about the sugar, I am concerned at the numbers of additives put into commercially available sweeties. Not to mention the price. Since when did it start to cost more than 50p to buy a bag of Minstrels from the corner shop?

Then I remembered. When I was a child, we often simply made our own sweets. It was fun! In fact, if you want to get all educational, these recipes are really quite good chemistry lessons too. So you can have fun, you can learn something and you can save money. What’s not to like?

Here are three of my favourite recipes. I first started making these when I was about eight years old. Although today’s kids are far more cosseted than we were, it is a good age to start to learn a bit of responsibility. Like being in charge of a gas ring in the kitchen on your own!

Honeycomb

This is a bit like the crunchy, golden stuff you find inside Crunchie bars. In Scotland, so I am told, they call it Puff Candy. In New Zealand, where my recipe comes from, it is called Hokey Pokey and is virtually a national dish. The recipe I used for this feature came from the website of Alexa Johnston although it is essentially the same as the recipe to be found in the classic New Zealand Edmonds Cookbook. It is wonderfully simple. All you need is sugar (mine is from a 98p 1KG Fairtrade bag of white granulated bought at Sainsburys), golden syrup (75p a tin at Iceland) and one teaspoon of baking soda.

Do not, as I did, be half way through cooking when you realise that the soda you thought you bought earlier that day was in fact baking powder. I can say from experience that baking powder will not give you that wonderful light, sticky crunchiness that honeycomb is known for!

What makes this recipe such a great chemistry lesson, and my favourite part as a child, is the dramatic fizzing up of the mixture when you drop in the baking soda. Make sure you do this immediately after removing the mixture from the heat, or if it is still on the gas ring take it off as soon as you’ve dropped the soda in. It isn’t dangerous but it will burn, and if you get the smoke in your eyes, it will sting.

Fudge

Now if there’s one sweetie that stands out above all others, the king of the sugar fests, it would have to be fudge. This is surprisingly easy to make at home. And there are a ton of different kinds of recipes out there. My favourite resource for this is The Fudge Recipe Collection.

The type of fudge I like the most is ‘Russian’ fudge. This sounds impressive but is quite easy to make. The recipe I use can be found here. You’ll need condensed milk – it took a bit of hunting for me to find this. I had been looking in the aisle with all the milks, yoghurts, creams, evaporated milk etc. Then I found a can in the aisle with the jellies, sponge bases, custards, meringue nests and so forth. You won’t have even used half the sugar and golden syrup bought for  the Honeycomb recipe, so you can re-use that here. The condensed milk cost £1 for a 405g can, and we used about half of that. So even taking into account the butter (85p for 250g), it cost less than a pound to make two sandwich tins of fudge. Now that’s a lot less than Thorntons.

Here’s a tip though – it is important to really beat the mixture into a very thick state when you’ve taken it off the heat. Not too much though!.This is one recipe that you’ll probably have to make a few times to get a really good feel for it, but it is well worth the effort.

Boiled Sweets

I love sucking on pear drops and sour lemons. But I had no idea I could make my own until I found this recipe. Now I have to hold up my hands and admit that out of all the sweets I’ve ever tried to make, this is definitely one of the scariest. There just seemed so much that could go wrong, especially with ingredients like tartaric acid. Actually it turned out a lot less fiddly than it looks. Just like with a chemistry experiment, if you are careful to follow the instructions precisely, you can’t really go wrong.

The Edmonds Cookbook has a few sage words of wisdom for making boiled sweets. It advises that you make sure all sugar is dissolved on a low heat before boiling, to avoid a ‘grainy’ finished product. Also, try putting a lid on the saucepan for two to three minutes as it reaches boiling point, to dissolve any sugar crystals on the side of the saucepan.

Now the next time your offspring start asking for sweets, instead of herding them down to the shop you can simply point them in the direction of the kitchen.

Today's guest post comes to you from the pen of Becky Goddard-Hill, author of the babybudgeting blog and the book How to Afford Time off with your Baby.

When you are pregnant you might want and need lots of new things, but it is definitely not the time to be spending lots of extra money. Here are some tips for a fabulous but thrifty pregnancy.

1. Books

Don’t spend a fortune on baby names books, week by week pregnancy books, everything you need to know about childbirth and how to get pregnant books. Undoubtedly when the time comes, friends will have a stack of these to lend as will your local library (who for a small fee can request them in if they don’t have them). Have a browse on Amazon to see what you fancy, then check out ebay to see if you can get it cheaper. Books are no more useful if they are new than borrowed, loaned out from the library or second hand.

2. Clothes

It’s not worth spending a fortune on baby clothes – you will be bought lots as gifts and you won’t have a clue what these will be. Hold on for the clothes you will be given and just get a small pack of 3 from a supermarket as a starter set. Plus the fact you may get a shock like me and have a 3lb baby, or like my sister and get an 11lb baby! If you do, newborn sleep-suits will be entirely wrong but at least you will have only wasted a fiver!

3. Wish lists

I think it is a good idea to write a really clear wish list so when you are asked what you would like you can point people in the right direction and get nightlights, sunshades, nappy bags and changing mats that you want and need (and which co-ordinate!) If you don’t speak up it is virtually guaranteed almost everyone will buy you clothes.

4. Wages

You could practice living on one wage now so the shock of reduced income is less when your baby comes, and you will have some money set by. This doesn’t mean you have to be miserable…. lots of lovely times can be had on a budget. You don’t need a last trip to Paris pre-baby or a pregnancy spa, instead try:

• Putting a little love note in your partners pack up
• Having a lazy bath with your best tunes, candles, a big choc bar and a brilliant library book
• Going for a gentle stroll in the country with good friends and a picnic
• Renting a movie you first watched together and cuddles up under a blanket with some hot chocolate
• Setting the table with cloth napkins, flowers form the garden and practically eating out whilst staying in - even if it is pasta it will taste much better this way!

5. Mindset

Do start to become a borrower/second-hand/charity shopper now (maternity clothes, paperbacks, items you may need for when baby comes). Change your mindset now and it will be come a good habit. (Top tip: Visit charity shops in posh areas for some quality bargains!)

Have a wonderful pregnancy! x

For more ideas about being thrifty while pregnant, check out Tamsin's New Mummy Money Guide.

[Image credits: Mukumbura, rosscrawford1, alancleaver_2000.]

On average people in the United Kingdom spend about £1000 a year on energy bills. Ouch. That would be far nicer spent drinking cocktails on a beach somewhere. You need to cut down on your bills right now. Imagine sticking what you save into a bank account and thoroughly enjoying the results a year later.

The first thing you need to do is check out how well your current rates compare against other companies.There are plenty of excellent comparison websites on the net now such as uSwitch, Compare the Meerkat,  Energy Choices or Go Compare.  The list is pretty exhaustive and all these sites include a wealth of suppliers for you to choose from.

Take your car insurance, household insurance, utility bills, council bills, credit cards and taxes and have them ready before you start. It’s a good idea to set aside a lot of time to do each one as you’re going to be inundated with information. Personally I prefer to build a spreadsheet or a table for each category so I can enter in the best deals as I find them.

When it comes to any form of insurance make sure that you do your research first. Don’t just take the first supplier to offer you the best price. Always check that they are accredited and that they have a good reputation. Sites like the UK Insurance Index have reviews from other users. Let somebody else’s misfortune in dealing with a bad company be your good luck for avoiding them in the first place.

Read up on what kind of insurance you’re entitled to. For example, if you’re a woman then you automatically get cheaper car insurance than a man. As you get older this rate drops even further. It also changes according to your claims history.

Delve deeper into what the different kinds of insurance are so that you are positive you have bought the right one and that you're properly covered in an emergency. Parents should always consider a policy that includes a hire car as part of the package. You don't want to be caught without a car in the case of an emergency.

Visit sites like the British Insurance Brokers’ Association for concise advice on what policies exist and how they work.

You can also get good deals on your credit cards. Yep. Amazingly there are even credit cards designed for people with bad credit ratings. Using these comparison sites you can easily see exactly how well your particular credit card company is treating you and what better offers you can take advantage of.

This may also be a good time to ditch your credit card entirely. Interest rates are high and they’re not good for your end of month bill paying either.

When it comes to utility bills like water, gas and electricity, there are as many offers available as there are for insurance. What you need to do is establish exactly which areas of your usage are unavoidable and how you can use certain periods to do things cheaper.

Some companies have packages that charge you next to nothing for washing and tumble-drying at night so you can do all of that after hours. Perhaps even consider getting rid of your tumble-dryer, it eats money and is horrible for the environment, and using your heating to do the hard work for you instead.

Speaking of heating...we all know how expensive that can be. My house, which the owners praised for its lovely warmth, is actually more like a crypt. It eats heat for breakfast and our first bill nearly had us in hospital for heart failure. We managed to sort out a new supplier and watch our usage without having to dress like mummies all the time.

You may be pleasantly surprised by how much you can potentially save by moving to a cheaper supplier or by turning things off.

Stick those savings into a bank account and use the money to do something useful, or to go on a much needed holiday. Much better to spend it on your family than give it away to somebody else.

What can parents get for free at Heathrow airport? Not a lot, but we’ve ferreted out what little there is.

Family friendly?

Heathrow has the facilities and supplies you’ll need if travelling with children. That’s what it says on its website, so it must be true, right? Note though the missing word ‘all’... The sentence implies that, but it doesn’t actually say it.

I’ve travelled through Heathrow a number of times: with a tiny baby, a crawling baby, a toddler... on my own, and with my partner. I can honestly say that I’ve never noticed an over-abundance at Heathrow of the sorts of things parents want in an airport. At Sydney airport, I got a freebie pass to the lounge area. Hong Kong airport staff carried bags and whisked the parents with children (of any age) through passport control. Fragrant hot showers and fluffy towels were on offer in Singapore.

I’ve spent the hours between flights in comfy rooms with cots, microwaves, bottle warmers and recliner armchairs. In Auckland airport, my son worked off some excess energy in the reasonably priced soft play.

One thing I can say for sure that Heathrow is vast for an airport. And that you should definitely allow for a good 40 minutes to make it through security. Plus, you really do want to add on another half an hour to get to your gate. That’s an hour and ten minutes. Which means I can also say from long experience that you should not, under any circumstances, stop to eat in Garfunkles on either side of security, if you’ve only got two hours before your flight leaves.

If you’re looking for a ‘family friendly’ experience though, you’re going to have to bring it with you. Work out all the easiest ways to travel through the airport before you get there, because to be honest, there’s not a lot of help for parents.

Claire Lovelady, BAA’s Commercial Communications Executive, did her best to help when we called. However, she wasn’t able to find out anything additional to what is on the airport’s website. For parents, especially those that were on their own, she did advise that “special assistance can be booked through the airlines.”

Food and feeding

There are restaurants at Heathrow with child menus. And that’s about it. There are a few baby care rooms with separate, private areas for breast feeding or bottle feeding baby. It is just that finding these particular baby care rooms is a bit hit and miss. They’re not marked on any of the airport’s maps. Some baby care rooms offer everything even a cot (found once in Terminal 4 a couple of years ago, but not been seen since). While others are just dark cupboards with a bench and padded mat for changing baby. Be warned that this latter type is the only kind of baby care you’ll find once you’ve gone through security at Terminal 4. Once you’re in one of the terminals, keep an eye out for the signs. A bottle sign indicates feeding facilities.

If you want a bit of quiet and privacy, the best idea is to find a gate that’s not being used and sit on the seating there. At least you can watch the planes while baby has lunch.

Babycare

To find child facilities at the airport, you are directed to the Terminal maps. These maps are, for parents, about as useful as a chocolate teapot. As mentioned, none of them state what kinds of baby care facilities are on offer in a babycare room. Also, confusingly, you won’t find any babycare facilities marked on the map for Terminal 5. As Claire explained to us, “The babycare facilities tend to be a separate unit between the men’s and ladies toilets.”

Entertainment

No matter how short or long the flight is going to be, it is always a good idea to let the kids have a bit of a stretch before boarding.

In Terminal 1 you’ll find an unsupervised soft play for children aged two to six near gates 35 to 56. Terminal 5 has three of these play areas, suited to children up to eight years old. These are located in the departures hall, after you have passed through passport control. According to iFly, a website providing guides to airports around the world, these play areas are by gates 7, 19 and in satellite terminal 5B.

We also found this freebie tip on the Heathrow Information website. According to the site, “colouring packs containing crayons and a colouring book can be picked up free from the BAA information desks.”

Parting with cash

If you really do want to spend some money on keeping the kids happy, you can. For £15 for two hours, children up to 15 years old can have some fun in the Jetterz Kids Club lounge. Here’s what it says on the airport’s website: “This fully supervised lounge for five to 14-year-olds can be found after security control in Terminal 3 departures. It's equipped with TV, a DVD player, reading material, toys, games and computer games.”

Really though, unless you’re stuck in the airport due to delays or similar, it doesn’t seem worth the money. Even more so the £20 per adult and £10 per child it will cost you for the privilege of using two decks of the 4Deck Lounge in Terminal 4, where you’ll get “complimentary refreshments, magazines, interactive toys and games for pre-school children.”

Not when there are plenty of corridors in the terminals where you can let the kids run up and down, watch the aeroplanes, and climb over empty seats at unused gates, for free!

[Photo credits: Pierre LaScott, spiesteleviv, kidperez, chippenziedeutch, Leonid Mamchenkov, James Cridland]

Toddlers are amazing. Don’t think that it’s far too early and that they won’t grasp the concept. Sure, they won’t be doing your taxes before the year is out, but at least they’ll have both feet firmly on the path to financial wisdom. Basically, if they aren’t eating the coins then it’s time to start teaching them what they are, how they work and their importance. 

It may also stop the “Can we go to the shops, Mommy?” or “You can just buy me another one.” I had the latter the other day. My daughter looked earnestly into my eyes and suggested I just go and buy more gloves after she’d lost the second pair this week. It was, I realised, time to start teaching her two or three important things and the first of these was that Mommy is not a limitless bank. 

Before you start it’s a good idea to sit down with your partner and discuss exactly how much you want your kids to understand about the value of money, how money works and what it means. Some parents aren’t entirely comfortable with dumping financial concerns onto a three-year old’s shoulders but others don’t believe that you should hold back the reality of this world.

How you proceed, how much detail you divulge, is entirely up to you.

There are several clever ways that you can follow to start things off. After doing a poll of the mothers I know and interviewing several others, it became clear that most of them initiated proceedings by taking out their wallets and setting the different types of money down on a table. 

Start out easy at first. They are just coming to grips with numbers so introduce them to the different coins and notes slowly. Show them the different colours, the different markings and talk them through what they mean. You can place various items from around the home, like toys or furniture or clothes, into the room and ask them to guess how much they cost. 

This is also a good time to implement a fiscal reward system. So if they hang up their coat, they get 5p, or if they leave a mess then that 5p gets taken away. Give them tasks to fulfil that help them to “earn” money and then take them to the shops at the end of the month so they can use that money to buy themselves whatever they can afford. 

This has a wonderful double benefit, of course. If they can’t afford to buy their latest desire because they’ve spent the month being naughty and having their money deducted then it’s a great lesson in behaviour as well as economics! 

The older they get the easier it will become and the more benefit it will have for them. 

For younger kids you can also consider buying a cash register and mini supermarket. These are not very expensive and you’re bound to get a great deal by looking online at places like HotUKDeals. Using these life-like role-play toys you can introduce the importance of money in day to day life. Do transactions, run a shop, let them tell you what things costs and gradually they will develope a clear understanding of money. You may find yourself having enormous fun with the entire game. Until they bankrupt you because they’re so good at selling you stuff... 

You can even incorporate a measure of creative play into your lessons. Do coin rubbings, one for each type of coin, and write the value beside each one in big letters. Stick these on the bedroom wall so that the constant reminder enforces what they have learnt. 

Consider introducing play money instead of real notes when helping them learn to save money and when paying them for achieving big tasks. The value is the same but you run less risk of the notes being coloured in, torn or hidden under the sofa.

There’s one craft you can have a huge amount of fun with, costs next to nothing, and can be used to make decorative or useful items. It's Papier Mâché!

Did those two words strike fear into your heart? For many of us Papier Mâché  (or paper mache) is something we only slightly remember from our childhood, in a vaguely terrifying kind of way. You might recall lots of gluey, gunky stuff and globs of pulpy paper, that dried to a hardened mass on something irreplaceable like the French polish finished surface of the dining room sideboard.

And all we’d end up with is some sort of lopsided bowl, which wasn’t really a lot of fun, and eventually went a bit mouldy.

It is time to give Papier Mâché a second chance. This is an especially fun craft to do in the warmer months when you can spread it all out on plastic sheets, and hose the kids down afterwards. We’ve picked the brains of artists, writers, readers of this blog, and scoured the internet, to bring you all the Papier Mâché top tips we could find in one handy place. Read on to find out all you need to know about the best glues, paper, and crafty advice for what to do with all that pulpy stuff.

Globs of gunky, gluey, goodness

What ingredients make a really good glue for your Papier Mâché creations? It seems that you’ve got three main options.

Option One: Cheap, mucky but definitely cheerful - make your own papier mache recipe using flour and water. This is lots of fun for the kiddies and a good option for saving pennies, when you can get packets of plain flour at rock bottom prices. Asda, for example, sell a 1.5kg packet of their own-brand Smart Price plain flour for only 43p. One tip we came across from a number of experienced Papier Mâché users is to add a few spoonfuls of salt to the mix, to act as a preservative and keep it mildew free.

One glue recipe was particularly recommended, and is from a site that popped up again and again whenever we mentioned this craft to anyone: The Papier Mache Resource. It uses one cup of plain, unbleached flour, one teaspoon of salt, and two cups of lukewarm water. Blend salt and flour, then gradually add water while stirring to make a paste. Add enough water so you have a thin, soup-like consistency.

Option Two: Wallpaper paste. Less hassle than making it up yourself with flour; but a little bit less suitable for use with children, depending on their age.

Option Three: PVA Glue mixed with two parts water. More expensive than the other two paper mache recipes, it is also more long lasting. Best suited to projects with older children. It is particularly good for sculptures.

Those are the most popular but once you’re more experienced at working with the pulpy stuff you might want to experiment. Try out some of the more unusual glue ideas and recipes at DLTK’s Growing Together website.

Pots of Paper Possibilities

Don’t listen to negative naysayers who will try to tell you that newsprint is never going to work if you want to paint your creation. Yes, the print will bleed through a layer of poster paint, or even acrylic. But only if you make it your top layer, or don’t use a primer coat, or try to get away with just one layer of colour.

Sheona Gillespie wowed the friends of her daughters at birthday parties for many years with home-made piñatas, and Papier Mâché costume masks. She shared her Papier Mâché secrets with us. “I collect the Financial Times, or some towns have a green sports results paper, and alternated the layers with regular newspaper. That gives you a good idea of where you are with your layers. Make sure your hands are thoroughly wet with glue to smooth the paper nice and smooth.”

“For a Papier Mâché creation that you want to paint, make the final layer out of something like kitchen paper or toilet paper (separate the layers). Or if you know it has to be dark, or a single colour, you can use coloured paper or serviettes.”

Crafty advice

How you mix the glue and paper together depends entirely on what you want to do with the end result. Celine Kiernan, artist and author of the Moorehawke Trilogy recommends using thick wallpaper paste for models, with “very pastey paper, and very very thin layers that should be dried thoroughly before you add the next ones. Or, run the paste and paper together through a foodmixer until smooth and puttylike then use to make thin layers over or inside a support/mould. This can give just the most amazingly lovely result and can be sanded for an excellent finish.”

Sheona agrees, and further suggests using chicken wire for the support/mould, or even just rolled up newspaper, loo roll or kitchen-roll inners, stuck together in the approximate shape. “It gives it a bit more stability and doesn't require so much of the mush.”

Younger children can make a fabulous mask using just flour paste and thick strips of paper though. There are a lot of suggestions for how to do this on the internet, but the best one we found was, again, at the Papier Mâché Resource, in their tutorials: Make a Papier Mâché Mask. (Thanks Tracy)

You really can’t go wrong with a piñata to add a bit of energetic fun to a children’s party. We used this to distribute the party bags, and it made an excellent ending for a 5^th birthday party. To make the piñata, we partly used this guide from eHow.co.uk – how to make a piñata. And we mixed in a few tips provided by Sheona. “Piñatas can be made easily and well; you can use big strips and flour/water paste and you only need a few layers because it's not for keeps.” We found that serviettes made a quick  finishing layer for a piñata, if you were careful to keep the cut, frilly parts out of the glue!

Saving money isn't always synonymous with fun. Some of the PlayPennies team were chatting about this recently. Sometimes money-saving tips and tricks can seem a bit, well, dull, and if you're sticking to a really tight budget it's easy to feel like fun is always just beyond your means.

So we scratched our heads and chewed on the ends of our pencils and brainstormed a bit until we came up with some fun ways of saving money. So how do you like the sound of saving money, having fun AND being able to eat the end results?

According to the Royal Horticultural Society, increasing numbers of us are turning to our gardens instead of our grocery stores in search of affordable food, in a bid to keep our monthly food bills to a minimum.

The Independent newspaper had this to say on the subject earlier this month;

"With the force of the recession still being felt, increasing numbers of homeowners are turning green-fingered as a means of keeping their food bills down. In the past month alone 25,000 of them have signed up to an RHS pledge to grow more of their own. Over the past three years, more than 750,000 people have contacted the society asking for information on how to grow fruit and vegetables. Interest is at such a level that the RHS, which runs the Chelsea Flower Show, is launching a smartphone application to help amateur gardeners."

But can you really save money by growing your own grub? Well, yes,  if you focus on relativeley inexpensive fruits, vegetables and seeds such as tomatoes, herbs,  carrots, potatoes and strawberries. You might have to shell out in the short term to get the necessary kit but even that doesn't have to be expensive - a yoghurt pot and a packet of cress seeds is a brilliant start, especially for kids.

To get you started, check out the One Pot Pledge®. It's an exciting new grow your own campaign from leading gardening charity Garden Organic. Their aim is to get 30,000 people who have never grown anything before to give growing a go.

The Get Growing page on their website has some absolutely brilliant resources to get you started. There are 10 different PDF files that you can download completely free of charge, which tell you everything you need to know about growing 10 different fruits and veg, all of which are easy for beginners to get stuck in with.

All your questions will be answered, and the information is really comprehensive, covering whether you're growing plants from seeds or from seedlings, what kind of pots to use, and how to care, maintain and harvest your handiwork.

Suttons do some lovely seeds and How To Grow packs for little gardeners and most supermarkets do their own range of garden related items, with lots of ranges just for kids. For example, Marks and Spencers do a lovely Grow Your Own Strawberries set and at £8 it's quite competitively priced. We recently bought a set of 6 strawberry plants for £9 from our local garden centre. Argos also do an Unwins one for £4.99, down from £7.99.

Look out for seeds and related gardening accesories at your local pound shop too. The BBC's Gardening with Children Guide is also worth a look.

You don't need a greenhouse or even a garden to be a gardener. And there are few more money-saving pleasures in life than picking items to eat from your own kitchen garden, whether it's from the greenhouse, vegetable patch or pots on your windowsills.

If the thought of growing your own grub tickles your fancy and you're going to be anywhere near sunny Surrey this weekend, check out the Crocus Open Day for more inspiration! It's open from 9.30am until 4.30pm on Sunday 24th April and the first 50 people through the door will get a free plant and a cup of tea! We've been told it'll be a lot of fun and that there will be plenty of bargains to be had...

When you first fall pregnant it’s a time of celebration, you’re going to have a baby! It’s magical and wonderful and amazing, until you start reading all the catalogues and magazines with their terrifying lists of all the things you need to buy. Suddenly it all seems very daunting and expensive.

It doesn’t have to be. There are plenty of things that you can do to avoid spending too much money on unnecessary things and clever ways to cut corners on the essentials.

When you read anything that tells you “What to buy for your baby” take it with a pinch of salt. Many of these lists have been devised by manufacturers and advertisers that are all too keen to snatch away your precious cents. Here are just a few tips and tricks on how to save some cash while preparing for the big day...

Nappies and nether regions

You may want to consider abandoning the disposable and using cloth nappies , they work out a lot cheaper if you wash them wisely. If you’re not interested in having buckets of dirty nappies lying about the house then why not consider a nappy service? They will collect dirty nappies, replace them with clean ones and provide you with the basics for a price that comes in several pounds lower than the cost of buying disposables. Not only that but you’ll also be taking a hand in protecting the environment at the same time.

If you really loathe the idea of cloth nappies then try to buy your nappies in bulk and start getting them from the moment you find out you’re pregnant. Every time your local retailer has a special, take advantage of it and stock up.

Don’t bother with a top and tails bowl either. Just get two Tupperware dishes out your kitchen and some cotton wool. Wipes are handy for when you go out but otherwise save cash by using water and cotton instead.

Changing mat

This is one thing you will need but, if you’re clever, you can merge buying one of these with getting yourself a baby changing bag. The latter is indispensible when you need to go out and usually includes a changing mat as part of the package. These are quite thin so you can soften them up with clean cotton nappies or a blanket when you’re changing your little one at home.

Clothes

I can’t stress the wonders of auction sites like eBay enough when it comes to baby clothes. Once you’ve been through your first year you’ll realise that your child grows so fast that they won’t wear the same clothes very often. Take advantage of this by getting tons of cheap clothes online. Watch the sales carefully and you can land a massive bargain. I netted 87 baby clothes, many with their tags still on, for £3.

Bottles (if you’re not going to breastfeed)

Don’t compromise on these and buy them from a reliable source. Boots has an excellent range that doesn’t cost the earth.  While the name brands deliver great products, your child honestly won’t care if they’re not staring down at a famous logo. Also look into getting bottles that are not made from harmful substances, such as Bisphenol-A (BPA), and that are more baby-friendly. There are plenty of brands like this such as the range I reviewed the other day.

Steriliser

Again this will be very much a personal choice for you. Would you prefer to microwave or to soak? I went for the cheapest product available that offered me both options in one and it’s still going strong today. Nobody cares that the name rubbed off at some point.

Blankets and toys

This is a good category to direct your friends and relatives to. They want to buy you presents to say congratulations and you need blankets, accessories and toys. Let them spend happy hours choosing the enormous pink elephant or black and white mobile that your budget can’t stretch to afford so you can spend on those necessities you really want.

Car seat and pram

I strongly advise against buying a second hand car seat, instead look at getting a retail label pram that has one included. Mothercare do a range of prams that come with infant car seats that sit below £200 and work perfectly. You can spend £900 on a deluxe infant carrier system that does all sorts of fancy things but it won’t make any difference to your baby.

Sleep equipment

In the first six months you can keep your baby close by in a Moses basket so get yourself one dirt cheap from eBay or completely free from your local freecycle network. Saving money on this will mean more money to spend on a cot later on. Once you’ve got it give it a thorough clean with antibacterial soap and get rid of the mattress it came with. A new mattress is mandatory. These you can get from most retailers that stock baby products.

As the time to move your baby into a cot approaches look at buying a cotbed that will last right up until they are six or seven years old. I also recommend getting a baby monitor. You don’t need a heartbeat breath analyser, just the old fashioned variety so you can hear them breathing and/or crying.

Other Mums

Chat to your mum friends (and your mum!) to find out what baby items they honestly could not live without, and which items they have never, ever used. Compile your own list and get started. Don't forget to really hunt down bargains on your chosen products by looking at sites like our sister site HotUKDeals, or Google shopping or eBay.

One of the surest things about becoming a parent is that, sooner than you’d think, you’re up to your elbows in glue, scrunched up tissue paper, cut up magazines, and bits of old cereal boxes! It doesn’t have the same lyrical quality, but the truth is that children and crafts go together as surely as love and marriage.

What all parents need to do is to make sure they’ve got enough supplies on hand to allow little imaginations to roam free. But, while the basic items used in creative crafts haven’t changed much since we were kids (or indeed our parents and even grandparents), their availability has. It is unlikely that anyone has pipe cleaners lying about the house these days. And items we buy generally come packed in bubble wrap rather than tissue paper.

All of which means one thing - you’re going to have to spend some money (ideally as little as possible)! To help you out, we’ve ferreted out some of the cheapest places we could find for the three most commonly used basic items you’ll always want to have on hand – pipe cleaners, tissue paper, and lolly sticks.

Pipe Cleaners

To an adult mind, these are just bendy sticks. To a child they can transform a paper plate into an Easter bonnet, a couple of boxes into a robot, or some lolly sticks into a model farmyard. You really can never have enough.

These items don’t tend to pop up in pound stores, our usual first stop for craft items. Unless they’re part of a themed craft pack, like a DIY puppet kit. If you want to buy from the High Street, one of the best deals can be found at discount bookstore The Works. At the time of writing, the store sold a pack of 15 different kinds of pipe cleaner (including a sparkly gold tinsel one) for £1.

But for the very best bargain, you want to bulk buy online. Fred Aldous art, craft and design materials sells packs of 1,000 pipe cleaners for £17.75 a bundle. For a much wider variety of colours though, visit Hope Education. Aimed at schools, it is possible for private individuals to register as well. It sells a large range of pipe cleaners, including ‘people’ coloured, and tinsel. A pack of 2,000 multi-coloured pipe cleaners here will cost you £14.95 (plus VAT). Tip: if you are doing a search on the site to quickly find the pipe cleaners, enter this as one word. Their search engine doesn’t seem to recognise spaces.

Tissue Paper

Coloured bits of tissue paper add that special finishing touch to just about any art project. You can pick up packs of 25 sheets in the 99p store for, well, 99p. This isn’t a bad price. But, when compared to the prices you can get on the internet, it is actually rather expensive. If you’re buying pipe cleaners from Hope Education for example, you might want to make the most of the delivery costs and order your tissue paper from there too. You can get 480 pieces for £14.95 plus VAT. Also, if you’re planning some crafts themed around football for the world cup, the company also sells packs of black and white tissue paper for £2.95.

Craft stores aren’t the only places to look for tissue paper though. After all, it is still primarily a wrapping product. At Packaging and Consumables you can get a stack of single colour tissue paper (also 480 sheets) for £8.95.

Lolly sticks

The cheapest way to stock up on these is to wash and keep the sticks from your ice creams. However, it’ll probably take a while to build up a good stock, and are you really going to eat that many? These aren’t just a great item to have on hand for crafts. You can also use them for making your own lollies and ice lollies with the kids. We found a great deal on these at Poundland – a large pack for £1. For that proper retro touch, try Rainbow Creations. It sells a pack of 100 ‘natural wood’ sticks for £1.49. Personally, we couldn’t tell the difference (judging by the online photo at any rate) between these and the wooden sticks sold by TTS at £4.80 plus vat for 1,000. If you’re looking for projects to do online, keep in mind that US sites will probably refer to these as depression sticks.

And finally

There’s one last item that every parent will find their child using because, well, a bit of shiny is always hard to resist no matter what age. For this reason, most mums and dads have at some point gone to put in the Sunday roast and found the tin foil box empty. What you want to have to hand is something that looks like tin foil, works like tin foil, but costs a fraction of the price. Most, but unfortunately not all, Sainsbury’s stores sell Basics range wrapping foil for around 40p a roll. Stock up on this the next time you do the shopping, and when your child wants that something extra for their rocket ship you can let them use as much as they like. Plus, you’ll always have something to wrap up your sandwiches.

What craft items do you think are a must-have in the home?

There is so much debate in the media about how to combine a career with being a Mum, and it can be confusing to know what’s ‘best’ when making decisions about fitting work around family life.

The good news is that more and more Mums are finding creative ways to juggle earning a living with raising children. Indeed, if you’re looking for flexible work that can be done part-time and even from home, there is a growing number of resources out there to help you create a family-friendly working life. The trick is knowing where to find them. So we’ve done the hard work for you and have put together a quick guide to some of the best sites and resources for working Mums.

1. www.motheratwork.co.uk

Motheratwork.co.uk was founded by Denise Tyler, a mum and PR consultant who struggled to find answers to her questions about being a working mum when her daughter was small. Denise says:

“I was a self-employed working mother which is quite a tricky thing to juggle and I tried to find information and advice, not so much about facts like what I was entitled to but just friendly advice from other working mums, and I literally couldn’t find anything so I thought I’d start a website and see what happens. It just took off and until then I had no idea quite how many women were in a similar situation who just felt a bit lost and a bit isolated.”

The emphasis at mother@work is on helping Mums to ease into the transition between having a job and being a Mum. The site is packed full of resources, up-to-date information relevant to working parents and there’s also a community element with a forum where parents can post questions or queries and get supprort and feedback from other parents.

The site covers everything from health matters, business issues and work-life balance advice through to tips about juggling work and home, and handling childcare issues.  “It covers pretty much the main aspects of a working mother’s life but is relevant to all kinds of Mums, and Dads too,” says Denise.

2. www.helpforbusymums.com

Help For Busy Mums is a site run by a life coach who specialises in helping mums to juggle their many commitments and responsibilities, and make time for fun, too. Founder Diana and her husband Steve have seven children between them, so she knows what she's talking about when it comes to being a busy Mum! She offers online (email and Skype), telephone and face-to-face consulations including a free initial consultation to find out more about her work and how she might be able to help put together a coaching programme to fit your time and budget. Drop her a line at diana@helpforbusymums.com if that sounds appealing!

Alternatively you can sign up for Diana's monthyl Busy Mums bulletin, offering time-saving tips and free online workshops that promise to help you stay on top of life.

3. www.familyfriendlyworking.co.uk

Family Friendly Working is run by Mum and PR consultant Antonia Chitty. Her site is aimed at mums who:

# ~ have a job, but feel fed up with trying to do too much in too little time
# ~ feel torn between work and spending time with your children
# ~ dream of being a mumpreneur
# ~ would love to find work that fits in with the family
# ~ are running their own business and want resources and support

Antonia's blog offers loads of helpful hints and tips for working mums and the Franchises and Party Plan Directory lists lots of family-friendly job opportunities

Antonia is mum to Daisy, 7, and Jay, 4 and baby Kit. She says  on the site: “It’s not always easy running your own business and being a mum at the same time. I couldn’t do it without my partner, David. We both find there are never quite enough hours in the day to do everything, and you may find me typing frantically in the train on the way to a meeting, making the most of every moment I get. But I wouldn’t change the way I work. I get to spend time with the kids, choose my own hours, and be there for events at school. I have the flexibility to adapt if one of the children is sick. Work-wise, I get to choose a range of interesting projects, and still love what I do.”

If that appeals to you, other sites worth checking out are www.workingmums.co.uk, www.jobs4mothers.co.uk, and  www.mumsandworking.co.uk, all of which list job opportunities suitable for mums.

4. www.familiesrecommend.co.uk

Sarah Sharp runs this innovative site that specialises in listing recommendations for families, by families. It's aimed at families who want to share a great experience of a family day out, holiday, club, class, venue, service or activity, as well as for families looking for honest information and real verdicts about those same things. While it's not a site primarily geared towards working mums, it's a great one to bookmark if you are a working mum, to help you strike that elusive work-life balance and plan some family fun for the end of the working week!

A Mum herself who impressively combines a day job with her self-employed role at Families Recommend as well raising a family, Sarah offers these top tips for managing your work / life balance if you're anticipating a return to work after having baby:

1. Give yourself time to readjust. I thought I could just go back to work and fall straight back into my old job, but being a mum makes you think different and act differently. Not only have you spent months (perhaps years) having conversations with your partner about nappies and chatting to your child, getting back to adult work conversations is great but can be strange. Add to this the tiredness and the guilt - it's a different you in the workplace.

2. Let people know that you have a child / children - most people understand that you have other priorities - such as leaving on time and looking like you've not slept in a week (which is probably the case). The more people know about your personal situation, I found the more accommodating and supportive they have been.

3. Generally going back to work (either to your old workplace or even your own business) you will feel guilty about it. We all feel it, but it does get easier.

Finally, do bear in mind that you are entitled to request flexible working hours (including working from home, working part-time or changing your hours) if you have a child under 5 or a disabled child under 18 but you do need to give your employer plenty of notice so apply early, preferable while on maternity leave, and check out www.direct.gov.uk/en/Parents/index.htm for up-to-the-minute advice and information about your rights as a working parent.

We’re constantly told how expensive it is to raise a child. According to the Guardian, a recent study said that you’re looking at a sum of almost £200,000 to raise a child from birth to age 21. That’s a horrible total of nearly £10,000 a year!

With that in mind, here are seven money-saving resources you can’t afford to be without. These will help you save money, prepare for the future and raise your child without the panic.

1. Freecycle

This online network spiders across the entire UK and is an unbelievably rich resource for parents and children alike. You can find your nearest branch by clicking here.

Everything posted on Freecycle is absolutely free, no money is allowed to change hands when you collect your goods. The plus side is that you can post a Wanted message to see if anyone has something you desperately need or you can Offer things that are cluttering up your home. The only downside, which some may find fine, is the fact that you’ll have to traipse all over collecting your goodies and, if you’re anything like me, you could get lost easily.

2. Sainsburys

Sainsburys' Feed Your Family for a Fiver campaign is an excellent resource for the thrifty family. You'll find brilliant ideas and recipes to cut costs when cooking for all seasons. Tune in regularly for cheap, tasty meals that you can serve all year round that won't break the budget.

3. HotUKDeals.com

HUKD lives to promote the latest deals, special offers and so much more.

There’s also a forum where helpful humans offer up advice and the latest news for all to enjoy. I strongly recommend visiting this site when you’re about to embark on gift shopping of any kind. It’s very easy to read and navigate and you’ll probably walk away having saved a bundle on your shopping. You can also use it to find deals on essentials for you and your home.

4. Childcare cost cutters

Many people find that during the first four years of their children’s life there’s no point in going back to work part time because the cost of childcare nullifies their salaries completely.

One good friend of mine worked out that if she did take a job she was offered, working mornings only, she would make a total of £5 profit each month. So while there are many different situations and yours may not be the same, there are ways for all parents to save money.

Look into your company’s policy on childcare vouchers and apply immediately. You’ll find a wealth of information about these and any tax credits that may be due to you right here. Make sure that you’ve filled in all the right forms and applied for all the benefits you’re due for your situation. These amounts, no matter how big or small, can make a difference to your budget.

5. Childcarers

When you return to work you’re going to need someone to take care of your children, unless you’re one of the lucky ones who gets a corporate crèche!

While we’ve looked at the vouchers in the last point, there are some other options that could work in your favour. How about trying organisations like Nannyshare.co.uk? There are plenty out there and all offer you different choices. You can end up saving a bundle while still retaining complete peace of mind.

6. eBay

If handled properly with due attention to fraudsters, postal charges and retail prices you can really get yourself some incredible bargains on eBay.

There are many tricks you can pick up on how to bid for your items carefully, how to use sniper software that does the job for you and how to not spend more than you would have if you bought it new. From doll houses to slides to baby clothes, there are some fantastic deals on there that will save you bundles of cash. You can kit out all your newborn essentials like clothes and cots as well as supply your toddlers and teens with an endless supply of toys and necessities.

7. BBC Parenting

This site is packed full of tasty tips for parents. From planning your finances to teaching your children about money there is good advice from experts there.

The BBC Parenting site isn’t remotely patronising and doesn’t assume a level of knowledge either. It’s easy to navigate and provides you with some excellent tools to manage your parenting life and your budget. The plus side is that you will get a great overview on issues you’re likely to encounter as a parent over the years so you can plan ahead.

On PlayPennies, we share a few free competitions every week, in the hopes that one of you will win a mega prize, and be forever thankful. This feature is about finding and entering contests through the medium of Twitter, and how to increase your chances of winning cool prizes.

You'd be surprised to know how many people tweet about their contests on Twitter. As well as the large multi-national companies, small blogs and sites also use it to communicate with their readers. It's these little sites that have a small readerbase, so therefore you would have a much higher chance of winning a prize. OK, it may not be as amazing a prize as those offered by the big guys, but it's still nice to win anything!

If you search Twitter for certain keywords, you can come up with some lesser known contests to enter, and hopefully have good chances of winning.

Search for "competitions"

Simply do a twitter search for the word competition or competitions. Take note that the singular and plural versions give you different results.

Now, these searches are going to output posts from all over the world, including many competitions that may not be applicable to us in the UK. You can try searching for UK competition or UK competitions. If people are posting about a competition on a Dot CO Dot Uk domain, this will appear in the results. This gives you much more tailored results, and it is easy to click through and enter the free competitions.

Search for "contests"

While this is a more Americanised term, some people still may use this word to announce their competitions. Again, it's worth considering the singular, the plural, and combining with the UK phrase.

Search for "giveaways"

Another term that is used quite a bit in the blogging world is the word "giveaway." While this really isn't very common in the UK, you still might get a few nice competitions in there. Again, I recommend a search for UK giveaway or UK giveaways.

Search for "prizes"

Again, this might not give you many results, but it will show up some competitions that did not appear in the above searches. If you search for UK prize or UK prizes, you may see a few more to enter. Of couse, as with any of the above searches, you run the risk of getting irrelevant results… such as tweets about the Nobel Peace Prize!

Search for "win"

Just another handy keyword to search for, again combined with UK to find tweets containing UK and win - UK win. Quite often, this flags up people re-tweeting the contest in the hopes of winning a prize themselves.

General searching tip

If you want to find a specific phrase on twitter, put the phrase in inverted commas. You can see the difference between UK competitions and "UK competitions."

Of course, you can just use google to search for free online competitions, but as you are using Twitter, and you are seeing real time results, you know these competitions are live and active, and not out-of-date.

P.S. Don't forget to follow us on Twitter :)

I don't know how I haven't heard about this until recently, but BaBeeCard is something worth knowing about if you're a Mum. Specifically designed with Mums and Mums-to-Be in mind, it is basically a prepaid MasterCard that you top up with funds and then use to pay for items as you wish. You can use it to pay for purchases wherever MasterCard is accepted.

BaBeeCard is not a credit card, charge card or debit card. It is a prepaid debit card that you load up with funds and spend as you wish. Each time you use the card, the purchase amount is deducted from the available balance. It's like a "Pay-As-You-Go" account, with funds loaded to be spent as you please. There are no credit checks involved as no borrowing facility is provided, and using your card you can claim discounts of up to 20% at a number of high street retailers. You can top up your card for free by bank transfer or instantly by debit card for a fee of £1.

A BaBee card is ideal if you don't have a debit card - or as a gift. You can buy one for someone special and treat them by topping it up with additional funds from time to time. And unlike a standard debit card, you can earn money from your BaBee Card by recommending it to your friends, and the BaBee Discount Club can save you up to £1000 on purchases, while BaBee Card gives £1 to BLISS, the charity for premature babies, for every card purchased.

With over 100 High Street retailers as part of their discount club, BaBeeCard helps families save on groceries, petrol, baby & child goods and big ticket items such as holidays, home furnishings and cars.

On an average grocery spend of £300 per month, a family shopping at ASDA or Sainsburys could save £15 per month with their BaBeeCard, so the initial purchase price of £9.95 for a 2 year card is covered off in the first month of saving.

They also offer a money back guarantee so if the cardholder hasn't saved the initial purchase price in the lifetime of the card they will refund the £9.95 (This is subject to T&Cs.)

For Mums on a budget, the BaBee Card strikes me as an ingenius way to keep control of household spending.

It's the brainchild of mum Gemma Johnson who says she felt overwhelmed during her pregnancy with the vast assortment of mother and baby products available, the cost of preparing for her new arrival and the financial vulnerability that accompanies changing from a salaried position to living on maternity pay.

Gemma wanted to create a payment solution that would enable all women to take control over their finances and maximise the discounts available in the marketplace. As her website explains:

"BaBee Card primarily focuses on mums-to-be, new mums and women with families, bringing to them the opportunity to spend within their limits, to redeem against discounts and promotions, getting more for their money and enabling them to cut their cloth according to their means without fear of overspending."

The idea behind allowing friends and family to load funds onto the card from any UK location came from the fact that not all of Gemma's friends and family could join her to celebrate the arrival of her baby but they were all keen to send gifts. As Gemma explains, BaBeeCard allows others to be a part of your special occasion irrespective of location, and all money loaded onto the BaBeeCard enables the cardholder to get more for her money through utilising the discount scheme.

My friend's Grandmother used to joke about her 'running away fund' and although I'm not advocating the need for one of those, I think it's a great idea to set aside a stash of money that is just for you. As Mums we often scrimp when it comes to spoiling ourselves, and I quite like the idea of getting a BaBee Card and using it as my treats fund. I couldn't go overboard as the budget wouldn't allow me to load it with funds that I don't have but I love the idea of always knowing there's a card in my bag with enough for a mag and giant cup of hot chocolate just waiting to be used, along with all the benefits associated with the card. I also think it's a lovely idea for a gift for an expectant Mum.

If you've got a BaBee Card, leave us a comment and let us know what you think!

You can order your BaBee Card online here.