I've been a fan of the eBay outlet shops since I bought a laptop from the Argos outlet store as it was such good value at the time. It was a model that I couldn't find in the catalogue at the time but all the specs looked good and it was a good £100 cheaper than the models I was looking at in shops and anywhere else online.It was so much cheaper in fact that I was a bit (a lot) suspicious of how it could be so cheap and I'd pretty much decided before it was even delivered that this would be my last purchase from any of the eBay outlet shops. I had myself convinced that it would be broken … [Read more...]

A couple of years ago we were invited along to one of the WWE Live events at Newcastle Metro Arena and although I was most definitely not a fan of wrestling, Master Frugal was so obviously I couldn't say no.On the night of the event, we headed to the Arena with me feeling more than a little smug about how good a parent I was being- sacrificing an evening of binge watching whatever the latest thing was on Netflix to take my boy to see some of the big name stars he loved watching on TV.What happened next was as big a shock to me as it was to everyone else who knows me - I absolutely … [Read more...]

Do you ever have a day where you could do with a little boost by putting some awesome into your day? Me too.If I feel like that on a day when I'm at work then I have a top that I call my boost top because not only is it a happy bright yellow colour but it also makes me feel good when I wear it. People (well, the girls) know that it's my boost top and they laugh about it with me but it really does work.But what can you do to make your day a bit brighter if you don't have a boost top? Here's 10 ideas for you....1) OK, number 1 is actually going to be to go out and buy a boost … [Read more...]

Don't tell them I told you this but my children are generally pretty awesome and we have a great relationship.  They constantly amaze me with the things they do and they genuinely make me proud every single day.That's not to say that they're perfect though and there are times when they misbehave and they need to be punished because no matter how rarely they're naughty, if I don't let them know that their actions will have consequences then I wouldn't be doing my job as a parent, would I?I don't shout at them when I'm punishing them (or at least I try not to) because when I do I … [Read more...]

Last night was the weekly UK Money Bloggers Twitter chat which was all about financial education.  It was a really interesting discussion and I was overwhelmed by the number of people who joined in to share their thoughts.Financial education for our children is clearly an emotive subject as so many of you shared your thoughts with us and although you'll be able to read a full write up on the UK Money Bloggers site in the next day or so, I wanted to share with you today what my thoughts were on each of the questions.... Q1 Financial Education is part of the curriculum now but are we doing … [Read more...]