This time last month Miss Frugal and I were in the middle of our trip to New York which was genuinely an amazing few days for both of us.  I've already told you a little bit about the trip itself so I wont bore you with that again but I do want to tell you about some of the things I learned while we were away together - specifically the things I learned about travelling with a teenager.Data Allowance When travelling with a teenager it is essential that you have plenty of data so they can Snapchat and Instagram to their hearts content.  Honestly, if they can't share it on social media … [Read more...]

Being ill last year wasn't fun in any way but I did learn a few things about making time for fun and I think I'm a bit of a master at it now. ;-)The first thing I've learned is that a bit of planning never hurts when you want to have some spontaneous fun.  I know, planning and spontaneous don't sound right together but bear with me....You can read my full post about how we plan our spontaneous fun here but basically the planning element is really that we have a bag in the back of our car which has a mix of fun and practical things - everything from a football to spare sun tan … [Read more...]

If you're looking for tops on how to help your children with their SATs then look here.Next week, every Year 6 student (ages 10-11) will be taking their SATs which is a series of exams that will take place between Monday and Thursday. They'll then have to wait several months for the results which, in case you're wondering, are more important to the schools themselves as they're ranked according to the results of their students.The junior school my children went to was ranked as one of the top primary schools (out of around 20k other junior schools) in the UK for their SATs results … [Read more...]

This year, I'm determined that my garden is going to finally look like a garden and not a square of grass with some chairs and a table in it. The problem is that I'm not very green fingered and I don't have the time I'd like to devote to making it the peaceful haven that I'd like it to be so the things I do need to be low maintenance and obviously, not cost me a fortune.We started a few weeks ago when we gathered together all of the junk that seems to have accumulated in our garden and took it all to the tip.  This left us with just our table and chairs, two benches that I think we need to … [Read more...]

Not last Saturday but the Saturday before, we spent most of the night at A&E with Miss Frugal.It wasn't a great experience if I'm honest and although I wasn't going to share it with you (in case you all think I'm NHS bashing, which I'm not), I've just watched a news interview about more proposed cuts to the NHS so I changed my mind and thought I'd tell you about our night in A&E.Miss Frugal burnt herself with her hair curlers on Saturday afternoon and after doing all the right things to treat it at home, we decided that it didn't need medical attention but that we would keep an … [Read more...]